A First-time Voter Terrified About Tomorrow

First time voter, and first diary!

This campaign season has been a wild ride. I've been hanging on to it more and more since it began, watching every situation change and shift, whittling down to these last few weeks. By hanging in, of course, I mean checking TPM, HuffingtonPost, and Digg every hour, and even spending days at a time on dKos. And this is the final stretch, the home stretch. The bases are loaded, and I am sick and tired of horse race metaphors. I have a feeling that this campaign will be one for the textbooks, and, and the thing is, we're not even in the general election yet! Wow!

So, why am I so afraid about tomorrow?
I volunteered for the Obama campaign in New Hampshire, in Keene and Manchester, helping out mostly with computer stuff and such. (I have become a master of Excel, or as it's called on Linux, Spreadsheet.) However, in the end...I can recall standing there, at the 'Victory' rally in Nashua, watching as Clinton climbed up from behind to first place.

There's more...(If you're not bored yet. =P)

I drove home, shaken and upset, wondering what had happened. Some said the tears, some said the Bradley effect, some said that Obama's "Likable enough" comment did him in, but I don't know. Slowly of course, I got my hopes up again just in time to see us both win and lose in Nevada, and on to South Carolina where we won tremendously.

I had been following Obama as a politician before the famous 2004 speech, after I read an article in TIME about him running for senate in Illinois. After the speech and announcing his campaign, I volunteered as much as I could, not being able to afford donations as a poor college student.
Obama really inspired me to be a better person, to try as hard as I can, and every one of his speeches have the ability to make me, a former cynic and anti-patriot, very, very proud of a country. No one else has really ever been able to do this for me.

For the past two weeks, I have been scrounging for news, hoping to find something new, something that would take this race one way or another, fast. But I think I've come to realize that it's quite uncommon for a race to be simply decided quick and fast. I can see that it has to be won voter by voter.

I was so proud and so happy to finally cast my first vote ever for Obama, and I hope to go on to see him win. And I am terrified that he won't, that there will be a terrible loss, and I will be heartbroken. I can hope though.

All of this addiction to politics is making me consider switching my major from English to political science. (Cant minor in it, already a History/Writing minor. =P) And it's all the fault of this website. I blame you Daily Kos! You're more addicting than crack, damnit. =)

Either way, here we go.