Earlier last week, he made the case that the Obama presidency was indeed an oligarchy because the first letters of words HE CHOSE to describe the Obama White House spelled out OLIGARCH. Well, OLIGARH, but who’s counting? When I viewed this clip of him explaining this, my head exploded.

But then I began to think about it. HOPE is actually an anagram for PHOE. Now if you don’t know what phở is, it’s a Vietnamese soup dish consisting of beef and noodles. It dawned upon me that Barack Obama was turning America into a tasty noodle soup! With the government running healthcare, doctors will be forced to sit on death panels overseeing the killing of countless grandmas to be turned into rice noodles and broth! People, don’t you see what’s happening?! If Obama gets his way, you’ll have to say good-bye to Grandpa Joe and say hello to Phở bò chín nạc (Mmmmmmm, Phở bò chín nạc).

Upon further thought, I realized that if you re-arrange the letters in Barack Obama’s name, you get RABBAOCMAKA, which in this language I just made up means “black guy who will destroy America”. I mean what more proof do you need, America?! Wake up! Take a stand! I mean…*sniff*…I’m sorry…* sniff *…I love my country, and I fear for it.

“So what’s the deal with ‘FatHelga’?”

“Is that the name of an old girlfriend or something?”

“Why the nun with the cigar?”

“Are you on drugs or something?”

Can’t I have a little mystery? Can’t I just be a tad quirky without having to explain my zaniness? Can’t I just be?

Like a complete unknown.

Like a rolling stone.

If you want to Obama-ize something, you can check out Obamicon.Me. It’s a great waste of exactly 2 minutes and 37 seconds.

But in truth it was an exhilarating day. It was a day I never thought I’d see. To see the end of the Era of WTF-ness and see a new president take office who promises a better presidency, a better America, than what we’ve become used to. So for now, I’m still cold from that day, but I expect that once the chill wears off, a spirit of hope will replace it.

Image from huffingtonpost.com

Barack Obama was elected president of the United States of America last night.

The most emotional part of the evening was seeing this image on The Huffington Post saying “We HAVE overcome.” That is the epitome of hope. This is not a perfect nation by any regard. We were oppressed by an imperial force, we underwent a great civil war, we struggled with extending the right to vote to large segments of our population. But as Obama taught us all earlier this year, we are striving for a more perfect union.

And last night, I think this union became just a little more perfect.

While waiting in line, I was thinking about why I was about to vote for Obama. I’ve heard a recurring refrain from everyone I talked to who has voiced skepticism about him and his campaign: He’s good at delivering speeches. I’ve wondered whether I was merely being swayed by “fancy speeches”, by mere emotion rather than rationality. Standing queued up in that hot room, I thought about tax plans, health care proposals, energy policies, foreign policies, the Iraq war. I then thought about patriotism and history. It was a long wait mind you.

But I think what was most emblematic of this election was last night on television. Here in Virginia, which is hotly contested, we have been getting bombarded by both campaigns especially with TV ads. Even though Obama’s been outspending McCain here with like 30 commercials to every one of his, last night there was a virtual blitz with both campaigns blanketing the airwaves. And I noticed a stark difference between the two campaigns in those commercials. In the McCain ads, you had grainy recordings of Biden saying we’ll be “tested” with Obama as president, or questions about going under the knife with someone who had never done surgery before. In the Obama ads, you had Obama himself talking about his tax plan or about his background. While one campaign was running on fear, the other was running on hope. (I’m generalizing, but you get the point)

And I think that’s why I’m voting Obama in this election. I’m tired of fear. I’m tired of leaders that want to make us afraid of the world, that want us to believe they have all the answers. I don’t think Obama has all the answers. I don’t think he’s the Messiah. But he espouses what I believe about this country, that we can rise above our differences, that patriotism takes on many forms, that the American people don’t want to be told to shut up and go to the mall.

So I decided to vote for hope over fear. Whether that’s emotional or rational, THAT I really can’t decide.

His being African-American notwithstanding, Barack Obama came out from being a nonentity at the 2000 DNC to being the keynote speaker in 2004. He went on to defeat the Hillary machine, to whome EVERYONE pretty much handed the nomination in 2007. He’s run a very impressive campaign against John McCain that has attempted to lift politics in this country rather than drag it through the gutter.

But of course we can’t ignore the fact that he’s African-American. I used to debate with friends on the question of what will we have first? An African-American president or a woman president. Hands down, I said we would have a woman president. For one, there are many great woman leaders in this country already. Secondly, women are hella organized. Third, race is still an issue in this country. I hate to say it, but America has a long way to go from being a city on a hill when it comes to race. And the recent McCain-Palin rallies have shown it.

People are shouting “terrorist” and “kill him” in reference to Obama. People are saying they would never vote for a n—. Others are calling him an Arab. And all these people are intent on believing that he’s a Muslim, will make the national religion Muslim, and turn us all gay. I never thought that any election in the United States would get this ugly. If Obama were to win this election, after January 20th, some of what these people are saying would be considered a federal offense.

Believe me when I say that there is passion on both sides of this election. It looks like there are plenty of people ready to riot if McCain loses. If Obama were to lose the election, I’m sure there would be Obama supporters that would riot. The question is: Who has more guns?

UPDATE: And just after posting this, I read this article about how those other Gods will starting thinking their bigger than us. Run! It’s metaphysical invasion!

What really depressed me last week was that lurking behind this hope that Obama could rise above race in this election were notions that people weren’t ready to vote for a black candidate. Obama’s poll numbers in New Hampshire were staggering, yet he lost. Was it because people there were willing to state publicly that they would support a black candidate but that in private they would vote otherwise? Is America not ready for that kind of change? Are people here still THAT racist???

But South Carolina answered no. South Carolina said, “Yes, we can change.” And I felt it. I felt the hope returning to me. I felt like “a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too”.

And on the night of the primary, I was riding high when the first person to get on the airways was…President Clinton??? Give me a break! And he delivers a snarky, half-ass concession speech talking about HIS achievements. That’s when I realized it really IS Billary. It’s two for the price of one again. Only this is a bargain I’m not falling for again.

And I think he can win. He’s become a shrewd politician. Think about it, he understands that politics is not about litanies of promises or strictly about experience and how good a candidate’s resume is. He understands it’s about narratives. It’s about the story you tell. When people say, “It’s too early. He should wait a couple of election cycles,” he counters with MLK’s “fierce urgency of now”. When people say, “He’s too fresh. He doesn’t have the experience,” he talks about having the right kind of experience and the wrong kind of experience. When people talk about him being black enough or white enough, he asserts that he’s not running for Black America or White America but the UNITED States of America. And most importantly, he’s talking about CHANGE, when the people are yearning, shouting, screaming for CHANGE.

So my vote’s for CHANGE. My vote’s for Barack Obama.