This is the start of what will no doubt be an interesting new era in history – a moment in history that cannot be undone and that will change things forever.  We have always said that anybody can be president.  When an interracial son of a lower-middle class family actually does, there is no doubt that it is more true than ever.

After the hoopla last night I found myself giving my daughter a basic civics lesson – explaining the branches of our federal government and their roles, explaining how America became a country and what the Constitution is.  And even though it was after midnight, she seems interested and absorbed it all.  And at 1AM when we were finally going up to bed I asked her what she wants to be when she grows up, she said she wants to be president.  I told her that she definitely could … but she should start raising money now.

We went as a family this morning to the polls – my wife and I and both of the kids walked the 3 blocks to the fire station to register our votes.  My 4-year-old daughter (almost 5) was excited about being involved in the process (she had  made her own decision a few months ago based on the issue of equal pay) and my son was excited to see fire trucks (he is only 2).  We had only about a 20 minute wait and were on our way back home.

Now my daughter is in bed bemoaning the fact that we won’t let her stay up to see the results.  We considered letting her, but she is exhausted and it could yet be hours.  I’m not even sure I’ve got it in me to sit and watch things pan out.  As much as so many of the polls leading up to this have told me that my choice should win by a strong margin, I can’t see enough strong data yet to convince me and two prior disappointments have me hesitant to celebrate early.  It also doesn’t help that every 3 minutes someone on MSNBC mentions how no state has yet gone a different color than they have 4 or 8 years ago.  But I’m holding onto some optimism that things will shift sooner rather than later.  We shall see.

Hopefully in a few hours (or less) I will be following up this post with one of celebration of a long overdue victory.  Hopefully.  And hopefully tonight might be the end of a too-long series of politically-oriented posts.

Recently, my wife happened to be watching some coverage where Obama was talking about pay equity and his stance on the matter as well as McCain’s stance.  When our little girl overheard that women were making less for their efforts than men doing the same work and that McCain (supposedly) is content to leave things as such, she got infuriated.  She was shocked to find that such inequalities existed and mad that McCain is okay with that fact.  There are very few issues that either candidate is likely to speak about that would hit home with four year-olds.  But this issue resonated with her, and if she had the right to vote I have no doubt for whom she would be voting.

The cold opener (which everyone should watch) featured a guest appearance by Tina Fey as Sarah Palin alongside Amy Pohler as Hillary Clinton giving a joint press conference concerning sexism and politics.  Palin herself couldn’t have done a better impression than Fey pulled off.  If she were still a regular on the show, I might even make an effort to continue watching the show.  But the rest of the show managed to stifle that desire.

Michael Phelps was the guest host of the show and his greeting routine was odd, but amusing – the impersonation of his mom was somewhat expected but fine, but Shatner’s appearance to dispense endorsement advice was priceline priceless.  I was with American in loving Phelps’ sweep of the gold, but I knew better than to have high expectations of his performance on SNL – his placement was as anticipated – in filler roles where you could laugh at whatever hair/clothes they opted to put him in.  Unfortunately, those made up the majority of the laughs the rest of the show drew from me.

Most of the sketches they went with were either obsurd, or good in premise but poorly executed.  The quiz show routine over-stretched a jab at home-schooling and made me pine for more classic SNL game show parody such as Celebrity Jeopardy.  The Charles Barkley Show sketch which featured Darrel Hammond as Bella Caroli had great potential to (a) poke fun at some of the Olympic contraversies and commentators and (b) introduce a decent impression of Barkley (Frank Calliendo is doing one already), but it failed to deliver on either. 

It wasn’t completely horrible.  The Phelps Diet Plan was amusing and the T-Mobile ad was kind of funny (though it made fun of a commercial that has been airing since long before their summer hiatus).  The Weekend Update still offers an amusing twist on headlines and Fred Armisen’s say-nothing editorialist character is good for a few laughs.  But when mixed with digital shorts like Space Olympics and Jar Glove, I’m not as inclined to give then benefit of the doubt.

SNL has gone through dry patches in the past, but I’m not sure that they stock is solid enough to muscle through much more of the likes of this.  And with the election politics stoking as they are, they need to be on point with these things.  Sure The Daily Show and The Colbert Report do a great job with such material, but neither offers us exaggerated impressions of our candidates on which to foolishly base our voting decision.  I hope that they rein it in in time for it to make their impression and meanwhile actually come up with some funnier material.

If there is one thing these last 2 weeks has cemented in my mind, it is that I am fairly liberal-minded.  I have known that already, but if there was any doubt.  Whatever doubt Obama hadn’t extinguished, Palin finished off (Jon Stewart helped a bit, too).  But I guess because I spent more time talking about the negatives and the issues that I took with what I heard of late, the code that tries to figure out what keywords to base advertising on saw a saturation of GOP-related information.  I guess if I was eagerly committed to shifing this tide, I could just write a whole paragraph or 2 of Barrack Obama over and over again (or I could actually write something positive about him … worth considering).  But I’m not that petty – after all, the advertisers are paying me, not vice versa.  So if a couple of pennies from McCain’s warchest end up trickling into this liberal’s bank account, so be it.  I mean, if by some chance he manages to get elected, I’m a long way from that $5 million middle-class mark so I’ve better start working on getting there.