Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC)promised to drown himself if Barack Obama won North Carolina. After a lot of work by hundreds of thousands of volunteers in a campaign that has already become a legend, Barack Obama won North Carolina.
I sent the email below to Senator Grahahm:
Dear Senator Graham:
In a recent column (NYT 11/8/08) Gail Collins reminded us that you made a promise to drown yourself if Barack Obama were to win North Carolina. He did!
I am writing to beg you not to do yourself in. At times like these, a cold shower that is usually more than sufficient. My plea is not entirely altruistic. I, and a few of my friends, take some responsibility for your current dire circumstance. You see, I am one of the people who have done all they could to turn North Carolina blue. I speak for most of them when I say that we simply don’t want your blood on our collective conscience.
Besides, I am guilty of this human frailty of making promises that, for one reason or another, I did not keep. Back in 2004 I made myself and some of my friends a promise to leave the country if George Bush won a second term, at least for the duration of that term. But I did not. Mercifully, my friends did not hold me to it. Instead we decided to do more than just contribute a few dollars to our future presidential candidate. We pledged to do all we humanly can do to help him win. It appears that we succeeded.
Among my friend is a staunch and misguided republican like yourself whom I tried to convince to consider voting for Barack Obama. He almost bit my head off and ever since I just manage to find enough energy and will to beat him when we play tennis. No hard feelings!
I want you to know that we still love you and respect you. We need you and others of like mind – not too many of you please – to keep us on our toes. We need you and your ideas to test our own ideas and convictions against; in a real-life laboratory and not in the ether.
So we absolve you of your foolish promise even though I do not know whether or not we have any power to do so. And we wish you well but not much.