No Blind Devotion

From the freezing snow of Wisconsin to the sunny shores of Hawaii, the streak continues. Barack spoke to standing room only crowds of 20,000+ in San Antonio and Houston yesterday. However, lest his supporters get too excited, Hillary also has rock star status in my part of the country. Early voting began in Texas yesterday. I was at one of the early voting locations yesterday morning, and the lines of voters extended out the door across the parking lot into the street. Although we have local races for county commissioner, district attorney, sheriff, justice of the peace, and constable (and there were lots of folks holding signs for their preferred local candidates), I could tell from overheard conversations that the Presidential race was the motivating force for most. I could also tell that there were a good many Hillary votes standing in those lines. Hillary will be here today (the second time in a week), and crowds approaching 10,000+ are expected at an arena in Hidalgo, Texas (40 miles west of here) this afternoon and on our local University of Texas at Brownsville campus (25 miles south of here) later this evening. By the way, in between those two events, Senator Ted Kennedy will be pumping up a crowd for Barack at the University of Texas Pan American campus in Edinburg. Barack is expected to be here on Friday after the debate tomorrow at the University of Texas in Austin.

The amazing thing about all this is that these two counties in this southern tip of Texas will produce only 7 out of Texas' 228 delegates. Yet, South Texas and its heavily Hispanic population (85% or more in some areas) is symbolic of the largest minority voting population in the United States and is getting national attention. In the 35 years I have lived in this area, nobody has ever cared how South Texas felt about the Presidential race because it never mattered.

So much for the chamber of commerce blabber, the real point of this post was supposed to be the expression of some concerns about my preferred candidate -- Barack Obama. A fine time to be talking about that since my vote went into the Obama column about 9:15 yesterday morning. But I do have a little advice for Barack. I am sure he is constantly scouring the blogs for political wisdom and campaign strategy -- especially a blog that is less than 72 hours old (hardly an aged wine). However, I think the fact that I have already voted for him should give me some sort of senior adviser status -- a "Super Voter" perhaps.

My nagging concern all along has been of the "is he ready" variety -- is he really ready? Will those wonderfully inspirational speeches translate into equally inspirational action? Will we look back on an Obama presidency as one that dramatically and positively changed the country? Those are the expectations being created. That makes asking the question a legitimate exercise -- are we (Barack himself and some of the rest of us along with him) getting too carried away by the big crowds and the powerful rhetoric? Mind you, I have been asking myself this question long before Hillary started pointing out that she is the only one truly ready on day one and talking about "speeches vs. solutions" and "all hat and no cattle". What is bothering me today is if I (a true believer and committed voter) am seriously asking myself this question, what about those thousands and millions of others who are going to be pounded unmercifully with the same question between now and the convention and then November.

I guess what I am saying is that there ain't no blind devotion here. I may have sipped the Kool-Aid but I have not yet swallowed. My primary vote is in the bag for now, but I am ready for Barack to start convincing me and others that he is really really ready.

More on how later.