My biggest fear has been  that all the hype would make people complacent.  All the great polls and early congrats and the general feeling of victory way ahead of election day.  I have been confident of victory before. Remember Al Gore, John Kerry? Today, I woke with feelings of both hope and foreboding. My wife and I live in Conshohocken,(good luck sounding that one out)Montgomery County, PA. It is a former industrial town of tire factories and steel mills, a transportation hub that has replaced industry with offices and hotels, river barges and railroads with superhighways. Unlike a lot of steel towns, location and good planning by hard-working, honest politicians has brought my little town into the 21st century with a much brighter future than many former industrial areas. At my local polling place at 8:45 a.m., there was no line. This filled me with dread, as long lines would have given me more hope. The good news came when I inquired about turnout and was inform that out of 250-300 voters in my ward, I was #218. Before 9 a.m. This made me feel a little better. Then, when I returned home, my daughter told me that Obama's people had come to the door to offer me a ride or any other assistance. I was astonished that in my little corner of the world, the Obama campaign could be THAT organized. I have managed to shake off that feeling of impending doom.

 John McCain, not 5 minutes ago, told Cuban Americans living in Miami that Obama will sit down to talk to Raul Castro unconditionally. In an effort to scare up support, McCain has launched a" Scare Florida's Jewish and Spanish speaking" communities into supporting the GOP candidate this election cycle. Unless the democratic nominee really tries hard to reach out to these groups, they will vote according to their unfounded fears and insecurities. Sen. Obama needs to set up a special delegation of election workers, and make repeated visits and overtures to them. Most who harbor these old fears are already a part of an age demographic he does not do well with. There is no good reason for Obama not to be President of the United States this time next year, but there is an incredible amount of work to do yet. If we reach out to those we know and tell them what we know, and his campaign makes the attempt to inspire these people the way so many of us have been inspired, we can change their fears to hope.

 I have always admired the Clintons, especially WJ, and enjoyed rubbing his victories in the noses of my ultra-conservative co-workers, playfully anyway. However, I don't think that I am in the minority if I feel that there has been a slow deterioration of their ideals over the last 20 years. Rather than share in the hopes and dreams of millions of idealists, that this country is finally ready to be all-inclusive in gender and race, their vision has become clouded by the notion that the end justifies the means. Winning at any cost is not, I think, how they started their lives in public service. It is possibly what they may now be best remembered for. As we have watched this primary season unfold, the constant moving of goal posts has reminded me of a line from a movie, the title of which I can't remember, cynically delivered by Martin Mull; "We need to lower our standards, a little bit at a time, and only where it's important."n If you are in the fight long enough, as this  contest, and also the current administration's handling of detainees in the War on Terror has shown us, you become what you detested in the first place.