Are you wondering why despite a 75% chance of winning in Nate's forecast liberals are still freaking out at the news cycle generated drama over the past week? We knew the traditional media would do this, come on, we all knew it was part of this march to November, the corporate horse-race melodrama. But it still really gets to us now that they have. However, don't fret. The real reason all this drama gets under our skin so much and seems to hit us so hard isn't because Obama is in bad shape - many incumbents would give their left arm to be in his position - the reason any momentary slip in the polls hurts so badly is because of how important it is to liberals for Obama to win in this America, in 2012.
This election is SO important to liberals. If Obama, the first African American president, and as we all know, a great guy - if he doesn't win, after all the racism, and all the ugliness, and all the craziness we've seen from the right - well, it's too horrible to fathom really.
That can't be the America we're really living in, can it? An America where the ugliness results in a man like Romney beating a man like Obama?
Probably not. Like 75%, probably not.
But even the idea that it might is so intolerable that it drives us into a frenzy. Mitt Romney exemplifies everything liberals dislike about the uber rich conservatives in the financial sector that are destroying our society. Obama, for many of us, represents everything we want America to aspire to be. If Obama lost, it would mean that the African American guy who came in and got Bin Laden, ended a war, and saved the economy - that he just gets sent back out again now that he has. Like a janitor. And that's just way too ugly to imagine. That's not an America that we can accept.
So if some of you are wondering about that sinking feeling you've got in the pit of your stomach, be aware of where it really comes from. It's not some prescient sense that Obama is going to lose - remember, 75% - it's that deep deep conviction that he must win, to make sure all that racism and all that ugliness doesn't get legitimized somehow in this America.