I Owe Ioway All I Owe and I Know Why

For Christmas, my brother gave me a knife block onto which he had decoupaged pictures of Barack Obama. While the act of sticking knifes into something with pictures of him on it is a bit troubling, it remains one of my favorite gifts this year.

I brought my new knife block (I really should get some more knives. I only have one and it lives at F&A’s house right now.) with me to a Iowa caucus returns-watching party on Thursday night. In light of Obama’s victory, it is now a lucky knife block.

By the time I got to F&A’s house, CNN had already declared Huckabee and Obama the victors. We spent the evening watching the pundits on closed captioning, talking about other things, only un-muting the TV when the candidates gave speeches. We talked over most of the speeches being snarky, listing words and phrases for the ‘buzzword bingo’ we are devising.

But when Obama’s speech began, we remained silent, listening to his words. His rhetoric is so good; he speaks so well. Inspired, I started to cry.

I have never felt this way about a politician, not even Paul Wellstone, not even when I watch and listen to RFK.

I have tried not to care too much about the primaries, since it probably will all be decided before I get to caucus next month, but I can’t claim neutrality any more. The crush that I have harbored for Barack since the 2004 Democratic Convention has blossomed.

I hope he can hold on; I worry that I am setting myself up to have my heart broken.