There are people who tell me that they haven’t seen Obama speak. They are missing something special.

When I was a young’un, I used to go swimming at Crystal Palace. It was a 90 minute bus ride but it was worth it because that was the only place that had Olympic-size diving boards.

I remember so clearly the day that I first stood on the edge of that 10 metre board and looked down and it was a long, long way to the water.

There’s a weird psychology game that goes on in dare situations like that. If you climb up to the top and just peek, you are allowed to come down again. Sure, your friends will make fun of you and call you a wuss but that’s OK. You can’t accept every dare.

But if you go to the very edge with your feet together, you are declaring to your friends… and to the world… and to yourself that you intend to dive off and that there will be no turning back.

It can take an eternity to finally screw your courage to the sticking place and take the plunge, but you know you are going to do it come what may. You go through umpteen false alarms of starting to lean into the dive and then realizing that the time is not yet ripe (and hoping your friends didn’t notice) until eventually you lean and then keep leaning and, with a tiny push! from your toes you are flying then falling falling falling with a rush of air and fear until boom! you are in the water and the thrill washes you clean.

As you break the surface and rise blinking into the sunlight you hear the yells of appreciation from your friends and the world is so great right at that moment that you wonder why you waited so long.

I’ve spent enough time on the edge now. Just one tiny push! and I fall into a new tomorrow.

Dylan was telling me last night how he is looking forward to doing chemistry. I was the same at his age, but I soon learned that physics was much cooler.

These days, it’s biology that excites me.

I only wish I understood it a little more.

I hold Gail Collins personally responsible for the downward spiral on the NY Times editorial page over the last several years, but occasionally she says something important. Like today

Meanwhile, the Republican far right has fallen into a remarkable snit over John McCain’s march to the nomination. Rush Limbaugh is virtually gnawing his own ankle in rage. By co-authoring legislation with Democrats, Limbaugh ranted, McCain was working with “threats to the American way of life as we’ve always known it.” James Dobson says he won’t vote if McCain is the nominee because of infractions ranging from failure to back a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage to “foul and obscene language.” Ann Coulter claims she’d support Clinton “because she’s more conservative than he is.”

Once again, the reason for everything terrible about American politics for the last 20 years becomes clear. These people are nuts.

It’s important because these people have had a stranglehold on American politics for about 10 years. These people are responsible for the republican party’s policies on detention-without-trial, immigrant-hating, torturing, suspension of the Bill of Rights and the invasion of random middle-eastern countries.

These people paint their enemies as evil, terrorist-lovers who hate America. These people forced emergency sessions in congress to keep a women in a coma alive for 10 more years and threatened the judges who would not bend to their will with violence. These people have smeared, slimed and discredited anyone who dared to disagree with them.

These people have tried to govern the country with a 50%+1 majority by appealing to the basest elements of their base and painting everyone else as traitors.

These people hate McCain because he does not do those things. He doesn’t have this same compulsion to smear his political opponents (OK, sometimes he does) because he understands that a nation united is stronger than a nation divided.

Now, here’s the thing. Of the Democrat contenders for the nomination, which one has a message of unity? Which appeals most to the widest spectrum of political views (even political opponents)? Which does best in red states? Which is winning most independents?

And which one is most likely to continue partisan politics as usual?

They don’t let me vote, but if they did, that’s why I’d vote for Obama. That’s why, if y’all who do vote do the right thing….and if Obama lives up to his promise, I’ll vote for his re-election.