If I'd told ya'll last year that Senator Obama would be our nominee and he'd be up two points in Florida and Ohio, seven points up in Pennsylvania, a point or two up in Virginia, four or five in Colorado, tied in Montana, and that being up three in Michigan was the bad news, well, you'd have called me a damned fool.

Fact is, I probably would have been a damned fool for saying any of that.

We're here.  We've come a long way.  We've overcome quite a bit of adversity.  We've had some reversals.  We've had some painful defeats.  We've had to accept some bitter truths.  We've had to accept that while we may be the ones for whom we've waited, we aren't going to accomplish everything we'd wanted.  We're going to have to settle from time to time.

Life's hard.  Politics is even harder.  FISA hurt.  Re-calibration on Iraq hurt some even more.  Off-shore drilling hasn't made anybody hereabouts all that happy.  Sometimes its entirely too tempting to say "fuck it" and unplug.  Sometimes the allure of the apathy is all about us.  Sometimes you really have to wonder for what it is, precisely, we fight.

Have a beer.  Kick back a bit.  Relax and put it into perspective.  Savor the moment, this second without worry, angst, or failures.  Understand that as you have this sweet release your countrymen are under fire in foreign lands.  Your countrymen are sick and don't have health care.  Your parents are getting older and how will we care for them?  The clock is ticking.

Take another pull from that beer.  Tastes good, doesn't it?  You shouldn't feel guilty for taking a moment to relax, even considering the pain, suffering, and smothered hope that surrounds you.  You work hard, you care, you're entitled to moments like this.  Breaks are good.  Breaks matter.  They help put things into perspective.

Finish off that beer.  Pick up the bottle.  Look at it a second.  Twirl it about in the light.  Now put it down.

Do you understand what I'm saying?  These things matter.  You could drop dead tonight and leave all this work unfinished.  I know I might.  That thought keeps me up from time to time.

There simply isn't enough time.  What do we do with what we're given?  I don't really know what's right, I only know what comes naturally.  

I intend to leave a Reaper0Bot0-shaped dent in the wall.  You'll all know I was here.  Hopefully there'll be a sricki-shaped dent, a spacemanspiff dent, a Canadian Gal dent, and yes, even an Alegre dent.  We all have to leave our mark.

We only have so many options this go-round.  We'll never get that perfect pitch to knock out of the park.  Life tends to throw us curveballs, knuckleballs, and far too many in the dirt, however tossed.  Ya gotta swing at what you're given.

Barack Obama is the best pitch I've ever seen, and probably the best pitch I'll ever see.  I'm gonna swing hard, fast, and with feeling.  I may miss.  I may strike out hard and in public.  But damn, am I going to swing.  I want a piece of that ball.

If I get the chance to look back on this time, many years from now, I want to be able to say to my grandchildren that while I've done a lot of things wrong I honestly tried to make things better.  I gave it my best.

Barack Obama isn't the best of us.  He isn't magic.  He isn't here to show us how to be better than we are.  He isn't better than we are.  But I think he inspires us to be better than we are.  Great leaders do that.

I think I'll have another beer.  I don't know what the morrow brings.  All I know is I've got some time to sit a spell and think on all this.  What sort of world do we want to usher in?  Another world full of strife, suffering, and pain just like this one?  Or would we rather try to, each of us, leave our own dents into the wall?  It's the only way we'll ever shape the place.