Iowa Caucus Day - the beginning of the end of Bush

Scott Horton at Harper's nails it - the expectation of today. The hope that something really great and interesting will come out of the cornfields of Iowa tonight:

Today, America begins a celebration of democracy. It is to be approached joyously, with optimism and hope, but also in earnestness. The process will last through early November. It will encompass, for all elections do, venality, pettiness, meanness of spirit, artifice, deceit—but these elements are included as clues to an electorate searching for meaning. No election would be credible without them. They help the alert voter discern those who are not fit. And for all of that, it is an essential process. I don’t recall in my lifetime another year in which the start of this process—the caucuses of Iowa—have been met with such anticipation.

America is a nation gone off the tracks. The people feel that keenly. And hence their anticipation of the process of decision. It means beginning anew. And for all the partisanship and divisiveness, ultimately this is a process of mending, of setting things back right.

.....

It leaves me thinking back to that man from the American plains, from a small town out on the run from Fargo to Minneapolis, a few tiers of counties away from the Iowa line. How keenly he saw the America that was in his day, and the America that was to become. America, Sinclair Lewis said, is “the most contradictory, the most depressing, the most stirring, of any land in the world today.” And his message was one that the voters should take to heart. We must not fear self-criticism and fault-finding in this process, we must not accept those who glorify everything which is American, for that may mean a glorification of our faults as well as our virtues. It is a time for introspection and for self-criticism. A time to check the voices that populate our political landscape against the nation’s shared values and ideals. Who among them will withstand a test of time and truth? This election is not like the ones that went before it. Americans are not making this judgment solely for themselves. At this point, they hold the proxy of all humankind.

As a former Hawkeye ('84- '88), all I can say is GO IOWA! Yeah! Pick the right people!!!!

I think I should probably order my extra Obama posters/signs today. They could be sold out temporarily by tomorrow! Fingers, everything is crossed!