Happy Birthday to Me!

Eight years ago, I got the worst birthday present ever: George W. Bush. Worse yet, I had to wait a good (make that bad) month to get it. Four years ago, I got Bush again. Blech. But today, I woke up ecstatic that I'd finally gotten what I wanted: Barack Obama as president.

Last week, my mother and stepfather, who live in Maine, sent me a Tomato Card showing a smiling Obama in front of the Capitol, and in handwriting by his head: "Happy Birthday & all the Best! Barack Obama."

Inside was this message:

You have no idea how hard it was to get a very busy Barack Obama to sign your birthday card. But he knows how special you are to us, and we did promise to vote for him a few extra times.

A major advantage to living in the Mountain Time zone is getting "late-breaking" news well before bedtime, so we got the happy news, courtesy of Jon Stewart, at a civilized 9 pm. My stepfather told me Wednesday that he'd been too tired to stay up for Obama's acceptance speech. But then he woke up at 2 a.m., went downstairs and turned on the TV, just to make sure it was really true.

And here's another terrific birthday present:
Good ol' boy (read: cracker) Democrat turned Republican congressman Virgil Goode, who's represented Virginia's 5th district for lo these many years, was defeated in a squeaker by Tom Perriello. Overall margin of victory was a mere 745 votes, though in enlightened Charlottesville, my late home (also of Thomas Jefferson, in case anyone would let you forget) the vote was 15,908 to 3733. See results here.

Everywhere I've lived went for the Democrats this time: NY, DC, MD, NC, PA, ME, VA & CO. (I've lived in a lot places; no wonder I feel rootless.)

Incidentally, all the pundits failed to identify the real reason why Obama won: he got the "Boy Wonder bump."

We'd been keeping it under wraps, but my darling child has special mojo. The home team wins every college or professional sporting event he attends: UVa football, Penn State football, Atlanta Hawks and Denver Broncos. And both politicians he's worked for have won: Chris Romer and Barack Obama. In the primaries, BW worked for Obama in Iowa, Colorado, Pennsylvania & Texas. (Yeah, Hillary won PA, but Obama won Philadelphia, where BW was. And Obama ultimately picked up more delegates in TX via its 2-step process.)