I walked into my polling station around 2:30 p.m. on Super Tuesday. I signed my class roll at 2 p.m. and used the freedom for which my forefathers fought to sluff the rest of class.
“Do you know Jim Pappas?” the pollster asked. He’s my great uncle, yes. He worked at the university, yes.
“What part of Greece are you from?” I don’t know, really. I’m not a very good Greek, really. I like gyros. Have you been to Crown Burger?
“Well, here’s your card. Enjoy voting!”
I did enjoy it. I won’t say for whom I voted, but it didn’t really matter. On Tuesday, there was a spring in my step. After days of snow storms, the sun came out for a brief, beautiful moment.
We can’t lose.
Although the Democratic nomination is still up for grabs, McCain has a straight path down GOP Street. I hope the old man brought his OnStar. He might get lost before it’s over.
His problems run deeper than being a forgetful senior citizen. He’s volatile. He’s your angry grandmother — the one who’ll slap you silly before you realize what you’ve done. I know. I grew up in a Greek family. Like my “Yia Yia,” McCain looks as if he would sooner slap me in the face than shake my hand. Not exactly the guy you want kissing your baby.
On the senate floor, he once told Sen. Ted Kennedy to “shut up.” He has called other senators (even Republicans) “s***head,” “a*****,” and “f***ing jerk.”
I don’t disagree, but it’s hardly civil.
His sense of humor could also bury him. In 1998, he joked that Chelsea Clinton was ugly because “Janet Reno is her father.” She was barely 18 at the time — an easy target for a mean old man.
Whether the Democratic nominee be Obama or Clinton, he or she will enjoy a number of advantages over the codger. In fundraising, they ate lobster while McCain bit into a fish stick. In the fourth quarter of last year, Clinton raised $26.8 million. Obama raised $22.8 million.
McCain? He raised $6.8 million and had to take out a loan to keep his campaign above water.
There have been record turnouts in the Democratic primaries as well. For readers out there who’ve voted in years past, can you remember a time when it mattered so much? I can’t. We are the trash collectors. We can’t wait for Bush to fall into obscurity and add that page in the Guinness Book of World Records as “Worst President Ever,” with Ronald Reagan a close second.
Yeah, I said it.
Most importantly, America will not forgive McCain for championing the Bush “surge.” Like Jacob Marley, this is a chain he will wear for the rest of his campaign. He is a Bush Republican. He’s more of the same.
It’s the last thing America wants.
We’ve been told a bedtime story for eight years now. There were WMDs. The surge is working. We’ll live happily ever after — eventually.
Our leaders betrayed us and McCain has only stood by them.
Whether the eventual victor is Clinton or Obama, whether it’s back to the good ol’ days or on to a bright, changing future, McCain doesn’t stand a chance.
I even have my “Yia Yia” convinced. I had to agree to marry a nice, Greek girl, but it’s worth it to take back America.
