I'll leave work soon and go home and watch the returns with a wild amalgam of emotions about the whole event.
Sadness to see Hillary, who I once admired so much along with President Clinton become the epitome of the Strategic brand of politics that I have come to so despise over the last eight years. Sadness also, in seeing that person suffer ignominious defeat after having presumed to have the contest locked up. Joy, of course, to see Obama, the candidate I only really committed to after seeing him, when faced with that Strategic brand stirring things up, come to epitomize the Substance brand of politics that we almost got with the Dean campaign four short years ago.
But all that ties into emotions from something else that I'll share after the jump.
All those emotions are really tied to my association with Howard Dean's campaign four years ago. Whenever I think of any of those situations that provoke those emotions, they inevitably link all the way back to 2004.
When I hear the Clinton supporters saying they'll vote for McCain or just not vote at all, I see my hand writing Dr. Dean's name on my ballot in 2004.
When I see Obama take the stage tonight to declare himself the presumptive nominee and talk about going on to win in November, I really think back to how much I had anticipated that speech coming from Howard Dean's mouth but then only seeing the infamous Dean Scream over and over again.
When I watched the Rules And Bylaws Meeting on Saturday, Governor Dean actually settled one of my left over wounds from 2004 when he told the story of how mad he was when he got that call from Al Gore in the middle of the night and I feel a weight lift off me because over these years, I had always felt that, in a small way, he had sort of shown himself to be "just another politician" when he went and raise Kerry's hand in that campaign headquarters hallway. I had felt that he was never really as angry as I was about the whole undermining by the party's elitists.
Which leads to when I see Hillary losing tonight. Below the sadness at seeing a past hero fall from grace and suffer defeat, I have to admit to schadenfreude. For over these past years, I have always blamed the Clintons for Dean's fall. It has been my contention that they pulled strings from afar to throw stumbling blocks in front him. (I keep hearing her voice at the Jefferson-Jackson Dinner in Des Moines, Iowa and the tone in it insinuating to the crowd that held nearly 5 Deaniacs to all other candidate supporters' 1, that tone insinuating that she knew something all of us did not know.)
When I see the map that shows the states won by Clinton and Obama, I feel pride in Chairman Dean's 50 State Strategy. I see Clinton having focused only on states that she felt she HAD to win and I hear her discounting many states by saying they "don't matter" and I see Obama lots and lots and lots of other states after having travelled to 48 out of 50.
But most of all, I am starting to believe in Hope again. I purposefully remained guarded about the whole process till I heard Obama speak about the Reverend Wright situation. Rather than spin and twist and do what was the least damaging and hoping that everyone moved on to another scandal, he took the time to try and make people understand. He took the time to attempt to unite. He took the time to talk plainly. He said what he meant and meant what he said. He didn't euqivocate, he didn't parse, he didn't pander.
Just like another great leader I once supported.