The Last Presidential Campaign

Barack Obama has me thinking a lot about horse racing lately. Maybe it's the timing of the primaries with the running of the Triple Crown. He was my favorite candidate right off in a busy field. I heard him speak once and I knew.

When I was a little kid my father used to take us to the racetrack at the county fair. We would wait until the horses came out and then pick one. He would bet two to five dollars for us and if our horse won we would be given the winnings. There were things you could tell about a horse by watching even for a short period of time that the stats and odds just couldn't reveal.

Barack Obama was a long shot but he got my bet anyway. My family all told me why he would never be the Democratic nominee and I just smiled and said we'll see.

I put my bumper sticker on my car and I went online and ponied up a small donation. I visited his table several times at the Farmer's Market and even went to a meeting hoping to volunteer - but that's another story.

Politics in America is a lot like horse racing right now - it's in crisis. We've seen a lot of our politicians break down in very public way in the last few years. And we just don't trust them - but it's worse, we are beginning to question their worth in the first place. Do we really need them? There must be a better wayLike our athletes and drug use we just don't know if we should admire anyone anymore. And where does all that money come from anyway? It's enough to make anyone cynical and uneasy.

Just when we're about to throw in the towel on the whole mess along comes a new kid on the block. Like watching Big Brown run he takes our breath away and despite ourselves we start cheering, exhilarated like kids again. Instead of a doubtful sport in a broken down, smarmy fair where the more unsavory elements live, we again see the magic and feel a quickening inside. Go Barack, Go. Can this be unbridled enthusiasm?

If he wins the whole show, we will clap our hands together three times and say, "I believe". If he breaks his leg in the final stretch- it will mean so much more than the loss of one candidate in one Presidential Race.