A "Pinch Me" Moment!

November 5, 2008
Nothing can express my feelings as beautifully as those by Alice Croll, one of the awesome My Barack Obama workers whose name has shown up in my email inbox for these past 21 months hundreds of times. I have never met her, but I feel like she is my good friend, my sister, and a part of the inspiration that helped to keep me going day after day. Thank you, Alice, and all of the rest of the people in the 100 groups I joined for this most incredible journey! It is my fervent wish that we can all somehow continue on in the work of President-Elect Barack Obama for our country.
Forever ObamaDonna in Lake Geneva, WI

The surreality of this foggy East Coast morning, watching dancing on the streets of Philadelphia,the swaying towards the sea in San Francisco, New York New York's Times Square with traffic of frantic folks, waves of women and men at the gates of the White House, remains a pinch myself moment.
Did we do it? We did.
Is he the one? He is.
Can we get there? We have.
Fired up? And here we go.
For almost two years of giving parts of our lives over to the belief in ourselves that had become a ghost of Americans past, many of us sit at our keyboards with Obama buttons stuck on our shirts, lists of e-mail addresses of people we may never meet strewn on our home office floors, laundry undone, friends who may have not seen us, or seen us sane for awhile, papers stuffed under the bed, here we are...dazed by what we have wrought.
Morning has already come to America, but the dawn will be as it never has broken the horizon. I wonder what will happen to our Obama groups, our daily dose of to-do lists, our blogging and slogging through the endless talking and turning points.
Like the national family, this superb support group, the We, the US that Barack Obama cited as the victors by his side, we will change too.
Maybe we won't have a website to keep us tight. Maybe we won't have the Breaking News to wake and snooze on. Maybe we won't even remember those who lifted us up or brought us down during our ongoing debates. What will become of the temporary asylum that was this grassrooting? It will be up to us.
Something extraordinary was born of this campaign, this cause, and yes this candidate. Something unknown and uncertain is what we all will become to each other as our mission
changes.
I owe so much of my ability to hang on here to those with whom I connect right now. We owe each other an embrace of the history we all made out of improbablity.
I think the best way to note this time is with an ending that is a beginning too.
To all the traveling companions of this jewel of a journey,

Aloha.
Alice Croll aka, Alice in NJ

Democratic Convention Cheers, Tears, & Jeers!

The Democratic National Convention opens with a bang! It was such a treat to see Teddy Kennedy on stage and listen to his powerful Kennedy voice once more! He was inspiring, and there was a tangible and visible emotion throughout the convention audience.
But, how about that Michelle Obama?! An authentic and beautiful woman, she did exactly what she needed to do and more! She painted a picture of her husband as a working-class advocate for the American dream who "will finally bring the change that we need." She stressed her and the senator's middle-class backgrounds saying the couple “were raised with so many of the same values: that you work hard for what you want in life, that your word is your bond and you do what you say you’re going to do, that you treat people with dignity and respect, even if you don’t know them and even if you don’t agree with them.”
In the first major address at the Democratic National Convention, Michelle Obama described herself as a daughter, a sister, a wife and a mother, no different from many women. She told a boisterous and emotional crowd waving signs reading "Michelle" that she and her husband feel an obligation to "fight for the world as it should be" to ensure the promise of a better life for their daughters and all children Michelle connected with mothers all across the nation when she spoke of her daughters. Michelle Obama talked about tucking in her daughters Malia and Sasha at night, and the appearance of the two girls at the end talking through the microphones to their Dad on the LCD screen was priceless!
But it was when Michelle Obama declared "I love this country" that the crowd cheered the loudest! Putting to rest any critics who keep bringing up her possible lack of patriotism, I like what MSNBC's Tim Olberman said, "The issue is now finished, over with, done, period!"
If you missed the speech, listen here.



Overall, the opening was great, even with some Clinton protestors trying to disrupt the night. The recent attack ad by John McCain with a Clinton-backer saying that now she will vote for McCain makes me wonder how those who supposedly shared Clinton's values and agreed with her stances on the issues, which are almost identical to Obama's, could choose revenge over their country. Maybe Hillary will squash that sentiment tonight as she is scheduled as the keynote speaker.