I was 19 when I had my first Presidential voting experience in 2000. In truth I had largely avoided politics up until that point. Sure, I had a strong sense of ethics, but it had never provoked me into a deep contemplation of working pro-actively to change things. I had come of age in a lower-middle class family during the relatively prosperous 1990's, and it seemed from my naive viewpoint that both major parties were just as corrupt as one another and that my vote didn't matter.
I knew next to nothing about politics.
It was only after my mother pleaded with me to vote that I bothered filling out my New Jersey absentee ballot from college. I scribbled in the box for Al Gore, not because I had any inkling of how close the election would be, but simply because I saw him as the lesser of two evils and wanted to get my mom off my back. Everyone kept telling me voting was my "civic duty", but to me it didn't matter who the next President was. It wouldn't change anything. It wouldn't matter.
Later events taught me otherwise.
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In 2004, at the age of 23, I cast my vote for John Kerry on a Diebold machine in Maryland. In the four years since the last election I had shed my naivete and learned an awful lot about the world. By that time I had been to anti-war protests up and down the midatlantic coast, from New York to D.C. I was passionate, at least when it came to the idea of getting Bush out of office. What was lacking in me -- and I'm sorry to say this, Senator Kerry, because I know you frequent this site and I do respect you -- was a genuine enthusiasm for the Democratic candidate. I had been a "Deaniac" in the run-up to the primary, but I still viewed the developments as out of my control and never donated or volunteered. After the Iowa surprise and the loss in New Hampshire, when it it became clear Dean was losing his viability as a candidate I simply resigned to support whoever ended up coming out of it. When Kerry won I was indifferent. Throughout the whole general election campaign my support for him was certain and unwavering... but I didn't feel like he was the absolute best possible candidate. I felt like the system had failed us.
Still, I stood in line for about an hour and cast my second Presidential vote. I was cautiously optimistic during the day, and crushed when the results came in that night.
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Now I find myself here at 27, on the cusp of the 2008 Presidential election. It has been a roller-coaster ride, but we have risen to the top of the last precipice. We teeter at the edge. The final gut-wrenching drop-off awaits.
I'll admit -- and my diaries here will attest -- that I was a fervent Edwards supporter during the primaries. His pleas for universal health care and his urgency on the issue of eliminating poverty drew me in. I was saddened when he suddenly left the race, but my support immediately moved over to Barack Obama. He was very much in line with where I wanted the party to go. I began to donate money, and I do believe I have gotten my money's worth. He has, quite simply, run the most impressive and effective campaign I have seen in my short political lifetime. It has been an awe-inspiring thing to behold. In him I see a politician who not only shares my values, but is ready and willing to listen to those with other values. He is a man who knows how to bring people together to get things done. This year I can honestly say that the enthusiasm is there in me not only to vote against John McCain and Sarah Palin, but to vote FOR Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
So I have. I mailed in my Washington state ballot about two weeks ago (I know, I know, I've moved a lot). But that, of course, is not enough. Not this year. I have volunteered on a political campaign for the first time ever, going door to door in the area for the campaign to get out the vote; Not just for Obama, but for Governor Gregoire as well. Today I made calls for the campaign to Missouri. The responses I got were mainly very positive. The best was when one of the people I called had himself just been out volunteering for the campaign in his neighborhood by handing out campaign materials in the street. Or the elderly couple who emphatically stated that they will definitely be voting for Obama early in the morning and punctuated their declarations with a simultaneous "Let's do it!" These are the kinds of things that leave a smile on your face and make you proud to be a small part of this amazing thing that is happening all around us.
That smell in the air is victory. Let's do it.