"Years from now, I wanted to be able to tell my grandchildren...."

On the Jon Elliott Show Susie Turnbull (sp?), VP of the DNC, told this story.

Two small older ladies were in line to vote wearing Obama T-shirts and were told they couldn't go in with that election advocacy gear showing and a guy twice their size offered his jacket as a covering. Said he was voting for McCain but thought they had the same right to vote as he. After voting and returning his jacket he said that he had gone in fully intending to vote for McCain, but once in the booth he had changed his mind. He said, "Years from now, I wanted to be able to tell my grandchildren that I had voted for Barack Obama, and not for the other guy."

(She acknowledged that the story might be apocryphal, but I'd like to think it is not only true in this one case, but, in other variants, not uncommon.)

I want to tell my girlfriend's niece (who I love like my own daughter) that I really think things are going to start to get better.

I also wouldn't mind teasing my Republican girlfriend. :P

them that I was one of the millions who put the first non-white man in the White House. I voted for Ford, and then twice for Libertarians whose names I do not even recall, and Dukakis, and Clinton twice, and Gore, and Kerry. And now Obama.

This time feels different. It feels even better than when Clinton beat Bush.

because it is more about defining our future and what we will leave/create for the next generations, rather than the usual choice of tweedledee vs. tweedleworser for the next couple/four years. I think that attention to the future generations and the kind of world that this election will make possible is what makes this story co compelling.

(And welcome to DU. Don't worry about any petty bickering you might encounter. Every family has a few squabbles now and then, and a few cranky kooks, and it's better to stay out than to pile on.)