TOMORROW WE FINALLY TURN THE PAGE

Last night, I got to thinking how I've spent my entire adult life, from age 18 to present day, under the Bush administration. It's difficult to wrap my head around how these past eight years have influenced my perspective on liberty and country. In 1999, when I graduated from high school, I entered college with an almost limitless sense of possibility. Since then, I've seen:

• A rigged and stolen election.
• A terrorist attack on U.S. soil.
• A failed response to that terrorist attack.
• Two mismanaged wars that have cost thousands of American and civilian lives.
• Revelations of torture at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere.
  
• World perception of the U.S. fall to historic lows.
• A shameful government response to Hurricane Katrina.
• A presidential administration that has repeatedly violated civil liberties under the guise of the Patriot Act.
• A president who circumvented the very foundations of our justice system by hiring and firing judges based on party favoritism.
  
• A Republican led economy that soared to new peaks on unprecedented corporate tax breaks and lack of regulation, only to crash to a generational low that will require more than a trillion dollars to fix.

I could go on. These are just the first things that come to mind as I sip my coffee this morning. The surreal thing about the Bush administration is that they failed us in so many ways that it's difficult to see the trees through the forest. But as you head to the polls tomorrow, please don't forget that the failures of the GOP are not simply vaguely angering or disappointing, but rather a laundry list of specific, malicious, and unlawful acts that have put the Constitution and the country in jeopardy.

Throughout the past eight years--somehow--I've managed to commit myself to optimism, and to the future. For three years, I taught high school English in a community on the U.S.-Mexico border. Presently, I continue to teach at a large University in the swing state of Indiana. It wasn't until Barack Obama ran for president that I found a canditate who shared my belief that if we can work together, we can affect profound change, tackling our most profound social challenges.

Since February of 2007, I've blogged diligently on behalf of Obama. I can't imagine how many times over the last two years I've heard people tell me, and I'm talking Democrats here, "You really think Obama is going to be elected president?"

Well, yes.

Thankfully, millions of Americans now embrace this possibility. What was once unbridled optimism, even naivete, is now a distinct possibility. But we need your help.

Please, call your friends and family, even those who are ardent Obama supporters, and make sure they vote! If they have already, please ask them to call their friends and family.

Please, call your other friends and family, the red ones, even if those who are die-hard, lifelong Republicans, and give them your most impassioned argument in favor of a new era of American politics.

I know that it's been an exhausting race, especially for those of us who have been doing this for going on two years, now. But please, make these last 24-hours count. Right now, the candidates are working harder than they ever have in their lives. The candidate whose supporters do the same will win this election.

See you at the polls.