President Obama

It's the dawn of a new day. Hope is here.

Hope is on the way

Hope is on the way.

That was the motto of the 2004 Democratic ticket. An election that broke my already-broken heart. I've thought of that motto so much in the last 6 months, and if you've been emailing with me about political stuff, you've seen that little phrase throughout.

Hope is on the way. I want so much to believe that I can hardly stand it. I'm optimistic in spite of myself, and my secret fear that tomorrow is going to be like that Wednesday 8 years ago, when I got up only long enough to check that it really wasn't just a bad dream, then spent the rest of the day in bed, and for the time I was asleep, I lived in a world that hadn't completely lost its damn mind. I feel good about this election, and I think tomorrow, I'm going to wake up with tears of joy instead of utter sorrow, but still...I remember the hope I had 4 years ago....

But I'm all in. We had to submit our bets last night for our Election Day Betting Pools and I bet my money on the most optimistic outcome I can foresee. Here's the electoral map I predicted:

It's wildly optimistic. Delusional, even. I'm going to lose everything I bet, in all the pools, because I went all in on every one -- the number of electoral votes, the percentage, the Senate seats, the House seats, all of it. The polls are saying somewhere between 330-something and 360-something for electoral votes, and god, if that happened, it'd be fantastic. But still...still...I keep thinking, "hope is on the way", and I see the pictures of 100,000 at rallies, and the lines of people for early voting, and all the inspirational stories of first-time voters, and switching voters, and die-hard voters. Hope is on the way, I think, and I decided that my 411 electoral votes are incredibly unlikely, but how can I possibly hedge that bet? Hope is on the way, you guys. I'm all in.