Barack the vote!

We're still a few hours from Super Tuesday here in the Golden State, but here at Casa de SwanShadow, we've already done our civic duty.

KJ and I have regularly exercised our franchise via the mail since the 2000 election season, when she was first diagnosed with cancer. This year, KM joins the ranks of registered voters — her absentee ballot for tomorrow's primary election was the first she's had an opportunity to cast.

In case you're curious, I voted for Barack Obama.

The fact that Obama and I have much in common — both biracial; both the same age (he's four and a half months older than I, which I will never let him forget); both spent the earliest years of our lives in Hawaii — is less central to my vote than the fact that of the available alternatives, I'm confident he'll make the best President.

That's not to say that the "connection factor" is completely without effect. The fact that I can look at Barack Obama and see what I might have become, had I been gifted with Type A ambition instead of Type B laissez-faire, certainly offers an incentive I've never had with another candidate. I'd be disingenuous if I stated otherwise.

But the bottom line is that after eight years of mindlessly mediocre, incorrigibly bull-headed leadership in the White House, this country needs radical redirection and, even more importantly, a dose of electric inspiration. Obama can supply both of those qualities in a way no candidate for President has in my voting lifetime. (Reagan did that for conservatives, I guess, but let's be honest: With the perspective of history, Grandpa was wrong about darn near everything — except for the Berlin wall, and that was all David Hasselhoff's doing, anyway.)

Were Hillary to win the nomination, I wouldn't have a problem voting for her. But I would do so with the same lesser-of-two-unappealing-choices lack of enthusiasm with which I marked the box for John Kerry four years ago. Hillary would make a decent Chief Executive — she'd look positively Lincolnian in the aftermath of Bush 43... but then, so would I — but I'll have a tough time forgetting that she drank the Cheney Kool-Aid on Iraq. Obama is the only candidate who can rightly say that he smelled the poop in the punchbowl from the very start. That's the level of courage and vision we need right now.

America deserves a President who can instill hope in our citizens and trust in our allies — that last a commodity Bush and Co. have pretty well burned through during their perverse reign of terror. I believe that Barack Obama will be that President, given the opportunity.

If you live in a Super Tuesday state, please be sure to exercise your franchise tomorrow — regardless of which party or which candidate you favor. After our First Amendment freedoms, the right to vote (and yes, the right not to vote, if that's your choice) is our greatest liberty as Americans.

If you're a registered Democrat, or an independent in a state where you can vote across party lines, may I kindly suggest that you vote for Senator Obama? Deep in your heart, you know it's the right call.

I'm your Uncle Swan, and I approve this message.