President Obama

Nov. 4, 2008, was the most moving night of my neophyte political junkie career.

A black man elected president? I never thought I'd see it in my lifetime, and certainly not with a majority of the popular vote.

I knew he would win before the race was called for him. Once we won Ohio and the networks had him at over 190 electoral votes, I knew he was our President-elect. There were 83 West Coast electoral votes in his backpocket long before the polls closed. I even called my mother and my sister!

My reaction when they actually called the race after the polls in California and Washington closed shocked me. I cried. In the middle of giant election party, I cried. Like a little girl.

Never in a million years did I think I'd get to see this so early in my life.

When he came out with family to give his acceptance speech, I got chills up my spine and started crying again.

My decision to leave newspapers so I can become more involved in grassroots political activities was confirmed as the right idea. I felt a passion over the course of the campaign that I have never felt in newspapers, and that I've come to realize I never will.

Obama, and to a lesser extent Larry LaRocco, have opened my eyes to what my passion really is.

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Obama's acceptance speech, part 1. The rest of it is linked to from the first part.

Nate Silver, world's hottest nerd

Yes, it's another blog about my flavor of the day crush :D

This time, though, I'm going for brains instead of white-trashness.

Nate Silver, who predicted the Rays would win 88 games this year and figured out a new way to look at baseball stats and predict what would happen that was better than the old way (I really don't understand all that, though, cause it's baseball, and we all know that baseball and I have a love-hate, mostly hate, relationship), predicted a victory for Obama tonight on his site fivethirtyeight.com, which takes polls and uses more fancy formulas and number crunching to interpret the polls and tell us what's going on.

Nate also pops up from time-to-time on Countdown and other MSNBC shows, providing me with the opportunity to see him kinda-sorta in person.

Now I know what you're saying, "Elise, I've looked at the top of the page, and, well, he looks more like he belongs in an engineering firm than in your bed."

To this I say, you haven't seen enough of my ex-boyfriends. I like nerds, geeks, dorks, whatever you want to call them. At the end of the day, nothing is sexier than brains. Your brains stay (generally), while looks are fleeting. And Mr. Silver has brains to spare.

Democratic porn!

Sorry, folks, no nekkid girls here.

Dems aren't the type to trot out a hot chick (Hi, Gov. Palin!) to try to win votes. Might be to our detriment at times, but in times such as these, it makes us look more grounded, serious and, well, presidential :)

Back on topic, my favorite Web site has Obama with an 89.2 percent chance of winning the election. Nate Silver, the adorable if slightly dorky guy who runs the site, also has Obama winning more than 345 electoral college votes.

I'm beginning to get the same feeling I had when Clinton won the first time. It's going to be a victory for the guy most people knew nothing about when the campaigning started, the man who seems to have some sort coating that makes negative attacks (Ayers, Wright, Rezko) slide right off and make his opponent look bad, the man who's capable of exciting younglings and getting them out to vote, the man who's capable of inspiring hope in a depressed electorate.

Stan is for Obama!

I just want to plug one of my new and favoritist sites, catsforobama.com.

Similar to Stuff on My Cat, it features pictures of cute, adorable kitties with Obama buttons, books, bumper stickers and even wearing Obama t-shirts.

There are even some lolcats. In that spirit, Stan and Maggie have posed with their favorite Obama button :)