The biggest drawback in studying abroad this year has been by far the fact that I had to miss all the campaigning for the primary season.  While all my friends constantly updated their Facebook statuses about how they were in Iowa or New Hampshire, I was stuck talking about how I was in Japan.  (OK, not a bad trade off...)

Little did I know though that my beloved Indiana would actually play an important role in our primary season, if not the closer role!  "Woah!" I thought, "I am getting notices about Hillary and Barack coming to my school!  Neat!  Oh shit, no, I'm not there.  Fuck."

Having been an avid Obama supporter since before it was "cool" to do so, I am naturally ecstatic that I will be handing him 5 or so votes he would not have been getting otherwise.  My dearest traditional, white, middle class (and dare I say bitter) family will be voting for Obama.  You're welcome, Barack!

Upon visiting the International Edition of CNN.com, I was shocked to find the headline, "Fellow legislator saw little 'bold' about Obama."  As it turns out, it is the lead story on the Politics section of CNN

"Oh, I wonder who this person could be?" I thought, "Probably a powerful Democratic Illinois politician--this could hurt Obama!"

In fact, CNN used a headline that took a small piece of the story, made it seem more important than it was, and plastered it all over its website.  Talk about a smear!  Turns out this "fellow legislator" is a Republican--and avowed McCain supporter!

One of the Washington Post's cover stories on the Tuesday's results wonderfully describes the current state of the Democratic race:  a candidate who is still quite unlikely to get the nomination.  Not only that, she will go negative and try to present her opponent as "risky."

This narrative is the most realistic, and should be pressed by the Obama camp.

According to a SUSA poll that went essentially unnoticed, Indiana is trending blue not just for congressional seats, already well established, but in presidential politics.

Indiana is finally joining Michigan, Illinois, and Ohio, soon to be a part of a strong Democratic Midwestern block that can be maintained for decades, if the cards are played right.

Look, I love Daily Kos.  It is amazing, and I would not be who I am today if it didn't exist.  I'm serious about that.  I'm 20 and I've been reading DK for 4 years.  

This place is great, and diaries are an important part of that.

But your diary about why Candidate X is better than Candidate Y means nothing to me.  You will not get my vote that way.

I was watching Hillary Clinton's second webcast today, and she addressed a question about gay rights.  Her answer was excellent, I thought, and it really shows how the Democrats are owning this presidential election.  We are already building such a huge wall to protect us from stupid Republican attacks.

And this makes me happy.

There is an article on Yahoo today that I find very upsetting.

As its opening states:

The U.S. military transferred the first group of detainees on Thursday to a new maximum-security prison at Guantanamo Bay designed to restrict contact among the prisoners and prevent attacks on guards.

So I thought I might share a little personal story with y'all about what I and my fellow College Dems did a week before Election Day--maybe this will help dispel the myth of apathetic youth?

See, I, being a college kid, live in a wonderful college town that is bright blue in a sea of blood red.  So when our congressional race was close, it was important that our city turn out the vote.

The College Democrats created a special program targeted towards students, called "the most advanced field operation of its kind, in the entire country" by the regional campaign strategist for our area.  We used a mixture of technology and old-fashioned GOTV that I think most of you can appreciate.

I know to many of you, this may sound silly...

I believe that for the next 1 1/2 years (until the Democratic presidential nominee is declared) in the interest of the website's viability, Kos should set more stringent rules about what is appropriate discourse.  As in no name-calling OF ANY KOSSACK, or something to this effect.

It just seems like we're still so far away from 08 and yet we already have people going absolutely nuts over who should get the nomination.  We lose real credibility here when the place turns into a name-calling festival--and we've gotten to the point where Daily Kos actually does have clout to protect.

I don't know why, but after spending almost an hour, I couldn't find a comprehensive list of the senators up for re-election.

So I decided to pull together everything I could find from dozens of different sources, and I figured some of y'all would like to see this stuff, and fill in some gaps that I have.