So, here we are again. Constant phone-calling and wading through dozens of emails and paint-flecked blackberries on vibrate as the media, the campaigns, the critics and the supporters prepare for another day of speculation and tribulation during a Primary Tuesday.
From my perspective, each contest only gets more interesting as we near the 20th of May. That's because I'm an Oregonian.
However this primary today is especially interesting because of a detail that is likely to be overlooked by the main-stream media:
Oregon's Mail-in Only Primary has already begun.
You see we were mailed our ballots starting last Friday on the 2nd. Coming off of the Guam victory for Obama and the having the 70-page voter pamphlets in the hands of over 870,000 registered Democrats, Oregon will be watching this Tuesday contest with greater intrigue than the others of the past because they can immediately influence the results of Indiana and North Carolina by either adding to or subtracting from the tally of the popular vote.
Oregon's voices are already being heard and the polls aren't even open in the East and Mid-west.
By dropping of our ballots at election offices or libraries, Oregon's going to continue to prove its progressive political style. Since we have a few weeks before the eyes of the media fix themselves upon the Pacific Northwest as a region in stereotype, let's use this time as wisely as we always have.
Learn about the issues that we care about and that our candidate can deliver upon. Ignore the playacting and label-placing and gibes of the media and opposition. Its just more distraction meant to stir up a response.
We're Oregonians, and we don't respond to pandering in any form. We're a State that's rich with a people who do not overlook our issues and regularly prove that we are reliant upon each other to correct mistakes and improve our livelihood.
Show the people of the United States our best, and that is what they will learn of us. Show them we believe in a Nation that progresses toward unity through examination and confluence, not one that seperates issues and people into categories or dismiss them with platitudes.
Show them we want Senator Obama.