I’ve been trying to find the right message for my first post-election essay. Looking for the perfect words, the most moving theme, what people need to hear. I’ve been riding on a seismograph of emotion, up from crying on the phone with my mom to angry debating with a stranger in the dorm lounge, down to denial and shock, and finally finding a positive medium where I can find contentedness in my faith in America’s resilience. My father encouraged me with a reminder of my own strength and that of my political brethren. We have been hurt, there’s no doubt, but we’re not dead.

I know that my party is not done. While we’re going to have it rough for a few years, fighting to balance seemingly unchecked liberal control in all three branches of the government, we can do it. We should’ve known all along that we’d never go down without a fight; this election was just one round in a series of many matches to come. Let’s call it a warm-up. We are going to regroup after this loss, pick up our things, center ourselves, and move on. We will use this defeat as a wakeup call, alerting our members with a call of duty. We have a job to do now, and it’s time to get to work.

All we need is a strong leader to emerge. That has been our downfall over the past few years, no impressive orator, no head honcho, no Reagans or Buckleys or Lincolns. I don’t know who it will be or where the person will come from, but I’ll be looking. Maybe Palin, maybe someone we haven’t heard from yet, maybe someone we won’t expect. No matter who it is, the bottom line is that this person needs to make him or herself known soon. In the meantime, the rest of us need to man up, get together in our towns, and prepare our revolution.

If you’re a conservative reading this, you know exactly what I’m talking about and you’re with me. If you’re a liberal reading this, you think I’m crazy. But you’re not my audience right now, so that’s ok. This is a message to Sean Hannity’s “Conservative Underground.” We’re in it together, and we’re going to win. It has started already. Walking to my first class this morning, I had an unspoken bond with everyone I passed wearing black. We’d nod a somber nod to one another, and no one else seemed to see it. If secrecy and stealth missions are the future of the Republican Party, so be it. We’re good at stuff like that.

As scared as I am for the future of our country and of our party, I am hopeful, because I know how strong we are. We have stood against evil before and won, and those are the battles that trained us. Our courage has been fortified in the fires of war, our faith is founded in God’s will, and our characters have been tested, more tryingly in recent months than perhaps ever before, and have passed with flying colors. Our patriotism is not this easily snuffed, and we know that America is the greatest nation on earth, one well worth the battle ahead of us. We have fought for Her glory before. We will do it again, starting today.

Do not be discouraged. Instead, take this as a warning of things to come if we continue to do nothing. If we all still want prosperity and peace and reform, failure is not an option at this point. Dress your wounds and come with me.

While we’ve still got the right to bear them, I’m bellowing a call to arms. Republicans of America: It’s go time.

I don’t like to be lied to. I think that’s a trait I share with just about 100% of all Americans. We like to be in the know, we don’t like it when people patronize us or pull the wool over our eyes, and when others lie, we typically get angry. There was that Clinton fallatio business, accusations over Bush’s WMD statements, and that whole Watergate thing. Presidents lie. And we don’t like it.

But usually the lies come post-election. Seldom are lies told during campaign season, because we’d never voluntarily elect a liar, right?

Yeah, if that were the case, McCain would be creaming B.O. instead of clawing his way to a tie. America has been bamboozled into electing a man who is engaging in blatant lies before even being inaugurated.

I’m not talking about the birth certificate rumors or the “Muslim” school accusations or even his ridiculously shady campaign finance (although I can’t promise I won’t harp on that some other time). I’m talking about his economic plan.

You make less than $250,000 a year, right? So you’re among that 95% Obama keeps talking
about, right? The 95% that he promises won’t see any increase whatsoever in taxes? The only people getting taxed are those evil corporate executives, the ones who have the audacity to employ millions of people and stimulate the economy and donate exorbitant amounts to charity. The tax hikes are just for the multi-millionaire professional athletes and movie stars and talk show hosts. And they all seem to be ready and willing to redistribute their wealth. So for the Left and the middle class, Obama’s tax plan is utopian.

If only. Here’s the truth: Obama is not going to raise taxes. Technically. But he is going to allow Bush’s tax cuts to lapse, returning everyone’s tax rates to their 2000 levels, an increase on all 100% of the American people, no matter the income. And that’s an increase you’ll see, even if you’re in that 95% he keeps babbling about. It’s a flat out lie.

Small business owner and political analyst Ned Barnett* did the math for us by taking his 2007 income figures and plugging them into the pre-Bush tax plan, the same state Obama would allow us to return to under his economic “wisdom.” The difference? An increase of $3,824. And he’s a regular, middle-class guy making way under $250k.

So how much will your taxes go up? How much will the single mother’s taxes go up? The schoolteacher’s? The just plain poor? Everyone’s taxes are going up with Barack Obama’s plan, and that’s the truth. While the Obama campaign keeps harping on McCain for his tax cuts for the wealthy, a larger scope reveals that McCain is cutting taxes for everyone. Not a single person will see an increase in their taxes, including the 5% that Obama wants to tax into bitterness. McCain will make Bush’s tax cuts permanent as well as instate his own. He’s going to cut taxes and cut spending, whereas Obama is secretly going to increase both. Do you really think this is the kind of economic irresponsibility we need at the brink of a recession?

ATTENTION HALF OF AMERICA: YOU’RE BEING LIED TO. Wake up and vote for John.

* Check my sources at: http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/10/senator_obamas_four_tax_increa.html

It’s not over yet.

I thought it was a done deal. I thought Obama had it in the bag, I thought McCain WAS an old bag, and I thought I’d have to move overseas. But a Republican victory could still happen, and I’m going to do everything in my power to assist it.

It took the comment of the stranger to alert me as to how negative and embittered I’ve become in my posts lately. (S)He said something about how I couldn’t be surprised that people in my dorm were lashing out against me when I was sending out so much anger myself. While I am still angry, and very much afraid, I’m starting to see the light at the end of a formerly closed tunnel, and from here on out, my message will be one of hope. Not in the smarmy Barack way, but in a genuine, starry-eyed youth sort of way. If elementary school fluff taught me anything, it’s that dreams are possible, and I can be and do whatever my heart desires. And what I desire now is a McCain triumph, an Obama annihilation, and proof that our country still has two brain cells to bang together.

But Kelly, you might say, I thought you’d given up! After all, the polls show Obama leading, you’re surrounded by his followers everywhere you go, and there’s less than two weeks left ‘til election day!

Maybe this is what the news media, a source that has been unashamedly vocal in their one-sided support, would like everyone to believe, because if our competitiveness gets choked, we’ll give up and hand the crown over to their golden boy. Their sneaky tactics worked well, even fooling me into a temporary, premature defeat. But let us not forget that polls have lied before. If polls were always right, Carter would’ve beaten Reagan, and both Kerry and Gore would’ve beaten Bush Jr. The Electoral College predictions are too close to call right now, and the polls are slowly but surely swaying away from Obama, even if it’s only a percent or two. The race isn’t over.

So to my fellow McCain supporters: don’t shut up and don’t lose faith. Keep campaigning and spreading the word, and don’t you dare stay home and opt out of voting because you think it’ll do no good. And heck, even if we lose, we’ll still know we were right. We’ll all get those bumper stickers that say, “don’t blame me, I voted for McCain,” and everyone else will watch us drive by as they’re waiting in line at public hospitals for hours upon hours or pawning off their jewelry to pay exorbitant taxes or holding their breaths for that first time Obama gets “tested.” We’ll probably be miserable, sure, but we’ll have been right, and that might be all it takes to get us through four years of hell.

Stay strong. I’ll see you at the booths.

Usually when I write about my politics, it comes out a place of agitation or fire or frustration. Today, it’s because I’m scared. I’m starting to get genuinely terrified for the future of our country, and it’s making me sick to my stomach. I’ve got a lump in my throat like I swallowed a tennis ball, I’m shivering under my fleece hoodie, and my hands are almost too cold to type. Physiological fear over US politics. Maybe I’m just obsessing too much over this election, or maybe, just maybe, it really is this bad.

I think it’s really this bad.

I just looked up the current poll numbers from Gallup, and Obama is leading McCain overall by 50 to 42%, well outside the 4% margin of error. Right after McCain announced Palin as his running mate, I felt a surge of confidence that he had victory in the bag, but her freshness wore off far too quickly, and now, as the McCain ticket continues to run an unaggressive campaign, I’m starting to think it’s too late. We’re going to lose. And I feel utterly helpless.

I don’t know what else to do. I’ve been screaming at the top of my lungs for months, but the world has gone deaf, and I am going hoarse. Why doesn’t anyone get it? He’s bad. He’s dangerous. He’s going to be our demise.

It’s not enough that he refuses to salute our flag or wear its pin. It’s not enough that he is the least experienced presidential candidate ever put up for office. It’s not enough that, in a time when I thought we all agreed we needed to start working across the aisle, that he’s the most liberal member of Senate we’ve got. It’s not enough that his long-time mentor repeatedly expressed anti-American and racist, Black Supremacist views. It’s not enough that his very campaign began at a backyard barbeque at the home of a radical 1960s terrorist who still stands by his murderous actions. It’s not enough that he’s gotten generous campaign contributions from a prominent Chicago business criminal. It’s not enough that he vocally supports the banning and censorship of television advertisements and radio programs, solely on the grounds that he disagrees with them. It’s not enough that his economic plan closely resembles one that, less than thirty years ago, proved to be detrimental to America and its citizens. It’s not enough that he openly supports socialist ideals over democratic fundamentals, and it’s certainly not enough that he shares circumstances, slogans, and character traits with the same kinds of men who came to power in places like Germany, fascist Italy, and Cuba.

To those who support this man: what is enough? What else could I possibly tell you to open your eyes? Obama leads 2 to 1 among young voters, and I feel that as a young voter, I’m at liberty to say that this is because, as a whole, we’re naïve and impressionable. We’re jumping on his bandwagon because he’s got hype, he’s got excitement, and he’s got the media’s blessing. But if our generation is the one looking toward the future, trying to make sure things are still good for our children and grandchildren, claiming to be informed and intellectual, then this man is not the one to represent us.

I know I’m just one voice. And I know that I’ve been using my one voice this whole election season and changed a grand total of 5 minds. But I can’t stop trying. My fear won’t let me. So if you’re with me, pass it on. If the McCain campaign won’t get aggressive, we have to. There’s still a solid 28 days until the votes are counted, and until then, I will be writing, talking, and, most of all, praying for a shift in the wind.

Don’t let me do it by myself.

A friend of mine asked me to put together an educational “seminar” for her about politics. She wanted a nonpartisan presentation of all the major issues and where the candidates stood on them so that she’d be ready to make an informed decision come time to cast her vote. I began preparing for this “seminar” tonight by going to each candidate’s website and reading what they had to say in the Issues sections. I began with Defense. And as I began to copy and paste key passages from barackobama.com to a Word document for later reference, I started to think that something was off.

Until tonight, I was under the impression that Obama wanted to cut defense spending. I got under this impression because that’s what he’s said. One video clip I saw on YouTube captured him saying “I will cut tens of billions of dollars in wasteful spending. I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems. I will not weaponize space. I will slow our development of future combat systems.”

But then his website says things like, “we must build up our special operations forces, civil affairs, information operations, and other units and capabilities that remain in chronic short supply; invest in foreign language training, cultural awareness, and human intelligence and other needed counterinsurgency and stabilization skill sets.” He says he wants to increase the size of our military, taking the Army to 65,000 troops and the Marines to 27,000 troops. He even wants to further fund weapons research, making sure that we’re keeping up with the 21st Century in terms of naval ships, missile defense, and armor. His website would have me believe that he’s totally pro-military. And that’s a Barack Obama I could support.

So where did the other guy go? The guy that who wanted to save us tons of money by jeopardizing our safety? Because it looks to me like that guy done and turned into John McCain.

The Defense plans on both the Obama and McCain websites are almost identical now. While they still disagree on the Middle East exit strategy, their general military attitudes are the same: more troops, better weapons. So I guess Obama has changed his mind again.

Oh, is THAT what Obama’s always talking about when he says, “change, change, change”? Changing his MIND? I get it now!

But seriously. While I’m not angry that Obama realized he was wrong and switched his stance, I do wonder what effect, if any, this is going to have on his economic plan. As Obama has been criticized for his proposed increases in government spending, he has been able to justify them because of what cuts he also says he’ll make. Several billion dollars of these so-called cuts were supposed to come from the defense budget. Now they’re not. So it’s a whole lot of spending and not a whole lot of cuts. Sound wise to you?

It looks to me like Obama’s got to change something. Again. Whether he returns to his anti-military ways or revokes his proposals for more and more spending, his platform as it stands now is imbalanced. If a candidate keeps trying to switch things up to make people happy, he’s got to make sure none of those people are paying close attention when he starts to spout off non-sequiturs.

Sorry, Obama. I am.

This week, while Joe Biden was wandering around Home Depot, mumbling to himself in the third person, Sarah Palin must’ve been cracking the books, running through flash cards with a campaign adviser, and trying out some of Ron Burgundy’s articulation warm-ups, because she gave a stellar performance in tonight’s Vice Presidential Debate. It was undeniably clear to me which candidate won this one, and I think tomorrow’s headlines will agree with me (unless Katie Couric writes them).

While Biden didn’t give a laughable performance, I was taking notes, and I found numerous arguments whose holes I could walk through. And I’m a big gal. For instance, one of the moments that will perhaps be reported as Biden’s strongest, was when he spoke of his family’s financial struggles in his childhood and gave a quick synopsis of his rags-to-riches story. I don’t deny his sincerity. But what baffles me is that he can use this history as justification for his policies when, in actuality, it is a perfect example of what the Republicans stand for: you can make success out of any circumstances. Even in his closing statement, Biden quoted his father saying, “Champ, when you get knocked down, get up.” But according to Biden’s party, the anecdote should go: if you get knocked down, stay there whining until the government comes and gives you soup and a band-aid. It’s backwards.

I also failed to see the difference between Biden’s pride and go-getter attitude when questioned about being “an interventionist” and the sole purpose of what we’ve been doing in the Middle East. He wants to save people and bring freedom to Darfur, but as his current outlook on Iraq and Afghanistan would lead us to believe, he’ll probably lead us in (as he did with his vote in favor of the War on Terror) and lead us out prematurely (as he’s trying so hard to do now).

On the other hand, Sarah Palin brought back the fire we all saw in her when she spoke at the RNC. Over the last couple of weeks, I was starting to lose my infatuation with her because she had some poor interviews, first with Charlie Gibson and then with Katie Couric. I thought that Sarah was fading, fumbling. But tonight in her closing statement, she commented on how she was happy to one again be able to talk to the American people “without the filter of mainstream media.” It occurred to me that that was the problem. She, in and of herself, is wonderful, and has gotten a bad rap from liberal media, tainting even initially strong supporters like me against her.

It’s easy for a Republican candidate to play the Victim of Media Bias card, but this argument, in Sarah’s case, was legitimized when the first reaction from Katie Couric on CBS was, “at least she didn’t embarrass herself.”

Palin was real. She was relatable and honest, and even as Biden tried to convince us that McCain was the out-of-touch candidate, next to Palin, he looked just like the old-school, white-haired, nothing-new Senator he was degrading. Whatever Palin may lack in government experience she more than makes up for in Middle-American life experience. If the everyman is who we’re after, she’s the pony to bet on.

My favorite differentiation between the overall statements of each candidate was the line between past and future, and who was on which side. Claiming to be the ticket of change, all Biden did was criticize Bush policies. The party’s only claim to the White House this time around in one man’s past blunders. Palin made it clear exactly what she and McCain want to do to initiate changes in our country, and she was able to make the distinction between their ticket and the Bush/Cheney regime without stepping on any Republican toes. In each of their last words, Palin looked forward, and Biden was still looking back. And at his age, necks don’t turn so easily.

Whenever given the opportunity, Palin had a beautiful rebuttal to whatever Biden had to spit out. My favorite was when, after Joe discussed the 16-month removal plan, Palin took a moment, breathed, smiled and shook her head, and said so matter-of-factly, “your ‘plan’ is a white flag of surrender.” The Republicans watching in our dorm’s basement lounge cheered for her, already knowing at this mid-point of the debate, that she was the victor.

I could divulge further into an answer-by-answer recap of what each person said and why Sarah’s was consistently superior, but you can watch the debate and have Palin do that for herself. I’m just so tremendously overjoyed that our girl’s back and, with her, our party’s hope for electoral victory.

But I’d like to end with a yarn about two of my friends and their post-debate reception. They traveled up from the basement to the first floor lounge, where the Democrats had gathered to watch the debate. When they walked in—silently—someone asked, “So, do you guys think Sarah won?” They nodded, and out flooded attacks and venom from several persons present. One girl went so far as to say, “I can’t even be in the same room as them,” and she walked out, mumbling something about closed-mindedness. Now, I’m not upset that they thought Biden won. Maybe he did. But they failed to provide any concrete and relevant evidence, and they dismissed all rules of common courtesy. So I’m giving you all this chance: if you thought Biden won, don’t yell at me for thinking the contrary, tell me why. And, if you know some of the attackers from the lounge I’m talking about, consider passing your information onto them so that they don’t make such fools of your party again.

On a possibly unrelated side note, someone keeps drawing (and labeling) vomit on my dorm door’s whiteboard. If this is in reference to my political swag, again I say hats off to another well thought-out argument. Thank you.

This title, of course, refers to my own work. I am a moron. I am closed-minded and arrogant. My ideas are the only ones that matter, and they often involve the encouragement of violence, are littered with baseless insults, and are communicated with ghastly diction and syntax. I can’t believe anyone in his or her right mind would consider for one moment that I have anything worthwhile to say, and I am further astounded that there is a single Republican left in the world because everything on the right of the political spectrum is obvious crap.

Not.

But someone in my dorm hall feels this way. He (I’m assuming a male did this based on a simple handwriting analysis) came by my door sometime between 10:30pm and 5:00am last night and wrote on my whiteboard, “Your misguided Republican mindless hate mongering is what is wrong with America. Meaning this,” which he followed up with an arrow pointing down to my Fresh Elephant advertisement. This guy is more than welcome to disagree with my conservative epithets. But the adjectives used to describe his disgust with me (none of which were separated
by their necessitated commas, by the way) are beyond inaccurate.

“MISGUIDED”
Wow, you’re a humble son of a gun, ain’t ya? To say that someone else is mentally blind and deranged solely on the grounds that their ideas differ from yours is incredibly elitist, and if we’re all so concerned about global warming, our first order of business should be to suffocate your monstrously huge head as I’m sure it produces an enormous amount of waste. You, sir, are arrogant, and I am sorry that you find yourself incapable of having the single iota of tolerance it takes to recognize that not everyone who disagrees with you is just plain unhinged. To sum up, I’m not MISguided. I’m just guided on a path that you haven’t yet explored. Join me anytime you want, and feel free to show me yours.

“REPUBLICAN”
Ok.

“MINDLESS”
Looking back at my posts in summation, I can give myself high marks for information and education. I use actual citations from accredited sources left and right, base most of my remarks off of legitimate newsletters I get and study on a daily basis, and I articulate my arguments beautifully, if I do say so myself. I have college professors, high school principals, English teachers, business executives, and former political officials reading what I write, and while some don’t agree with me, they all support my efforts and acknowledge that my logic and writing skills are superb. I am never one to get on my high horse. In fact, I don’t even have a high horse to mount. But when someone questions my intelligence, I will respond with full confidence that they are mistaken, because, if there is one thing I know infallibly about myself, it is that my intellect is strong. Do not discount my brainpower just because it produces different results than yours.

“HATE MONGERING”
I’m not 100% sure who exactly it is I’m being accused of hating, but no matter who this guy thinks it is, he’s wrong. I do not hate any single demographic, nor do I feel I convey hatred for any individual, idea, or political party. I state (with acumen!) that I think certain ideas or candidates are wrong, and I give fully substantiated reasons as to why, and I claim my own views with resilience. Hatred is never a factor. Granted, I often use a biting or sarcastic tone, either because I’m peeved when I write or I think it’ll make it more fun to read, but I try very hard to not alienate or insult anyone, except for maybe the candidates themselves (but if SNL does it, so can I). I can’t count how many times I have said something along the lines of, “it’s ok if you disagree with me” or “tell me I’m wrong,” but apparently this is not sufficient compensation for all the other times I go off on tyrannical monologues wherein I discuss the bloody holocaust of all things liberal, right? Your previous use of “misguided” and “mindless” tells me that you’re far more “hate mongering” than I am.

In fact, all of your words indicate to me that you never even read the stuff you’re criticizing. Maybe you saw the Republican elephant logo in the background and assumed my writing would be something disdainful, but I’m afraid, sir, that you’re sorely mistaken, and I’d appreciate it if you’d reread (or just read) my stuff. After that, I give you full amnesty in your judgment, so long as you don’t succumb to further hate-mongering.

Aside from your adjectives, I take umbrage with your haughty generalization that I am “what is wrong with America.” Firstly, I can think of a whole lot of things that are wrong with America, and freedom of expression and competition of ideas never come up on my list. I could so easily take this one statement you’ve made on my little whiteboard and tell you what’s really wrong with America: we don’t listen to one another. We’re all so stuck in what we believe, even when we have no idea why we believe it, that all things unfamiliar are automatically filed as evil. Your snap judgment of me is what is wrong with America. Your superiority and hardheadedness are what is wrong with America. Your grammatical ineptitude is what is wrong with America!

I am so sick of all this! I see the looks people give me when they see me unlocking a door decorated with John McCain merchandise. Do you think I’m blind? Republicans have been blacklisted, for crying out loud, and we do not deserve the rap we’ve been getting. Right across the hall from me is girl with an Obama sticker on her door. Have I ever vandalized it or challenged her intelligence via her whiteboard? No, because I respect her freedom to say whatever she wants to say. And until people start granting Republicans this same respect, we will be fully founded in our assumption that we’re just bigger, more adult people than they are. Please, prove us wrong.

It seems strange that there has been so little campaign activity in the past few weeks. I haven’t seen any outlandish breaking news or scandals, no badmouthing from one side the other, no venomous ads, not even any vandalism on my door. It’s as though we’re in this eerie calm before the political storm, and I’m not sure if I should wait it out or start stocking up on canned goods.

I claim not to be a prophet, but I feel like, just maybe, I might know what’s coming. This idea isn’t purely of my own premonition, mind you; many strategists have been musing over this quiet possibility since the RNC and are just holding their breaths for the moment it actually happens. Predictions say: Biden is stepping down, Hillary is swooping in.

This notion terrifies some people. It encourages some others. I’m not sure how I feel about it. My first assumption is that it would backfire. Everyone would be able to see (because the transparency is atrocious) that it’s out of pure strategy and is a lame, copycat move because Sarah Palin has shaken poll numbers like crazy since her debut. Replacing Biden with Hillary would put another tick mark under the already crowded “Obama Copies McCain Whenever Popular” column, and maybe, finally, people would start to see that the self-proclaimed catalyst of change really isn’t much of a free thinker.

The Republican ticket is getting more female support than ever. Obama, assuming his studliness would woo every woman’s vote (a tactic that was actually working for a while), is a little T.O.’ed that Palin has teetered her gender’s opinion. His vengeance may come in the form of the thing closest to a woman the Democrats have to offer: Hillary Clinton. Would it work? Would the women return to the Blue camps because Hillary, their heroin, came back as a second-best to the party’s golden boy?

Or would her supporters still feel shafted?

And would Hillary even be willing?

Or, the scenario I see as the most likely, everything might just even out, and this whole upheaval will have been for not. Some Hillary supporters will be happy to see their girl’s name under VP, and they’ll vote with the Democrats. Some Hillary supporters will be disgusted to see their girl’s name under anything but President, and they’ll vote with the Republicans as a silent protest. Women on the fence will be split down the middle, some thinking that Obama finally came to his feminist senses, and some thinking that making such a drastic change this late in the game is a foreshadow to how erratic his presidency would be. Polls will rise, fall, and readjust to approximately right where they are now.

And right now, McCain is owning. So do it, Obama. I really don’t mind.

When I first came to college, I kept my mouth generally shut whenever someone brought up politics, mostly because I could tell that the speakers who initiated such discussions were the overly-vocal, stubborn, uninformed members of their respective parties, and whatever I had to say, be it in support or opposition, would be discounted. I then quietly staked my claim as a proud Republican, and, as many of you know, I got a decent amount of flack for it (on a side note, my beliefs remain unaffected).

Things quieted down after people started to realize that—what a shocker—I might actually know what I’m talking about. They didn’t start agreeing with me, and I didn’t expect them to, but they at least respected my opinions and noted that they were all backed with factual support and logic. But I am not by any means the only Republican in history to have substantiated my platform. For some reason, though, we have been conditioned to think that we’re wrong, to think that we should be ashamed of ourselves for sporting elephants and red, to think that we shouldn’t speak because someone else will attack. We have, therefore, been silenced, and have thus lost touch with our comrades.

But we are not rare. We are not the minority. We are equally numbered and equally strong. We’re just not as damn loud about it.

I have two bumper stickers on my car, one that states simply “McCain for President 2008” and another that subtly reads, “No thanks, keep the change.” Driving to Boulder this past weekend, I stopped at a red light and noticed in my rear-view mirror a man and his wife reading the back of my car. They chuckled, saw that I saw them, and gave me a thumbs-up. Later, the same stickers got me flipped off, but I was still so happy about the first reaction that I didn’t care. I was glad to be a lifeline for one conservative couple stuck in a liberal town. I was glad to be a ray of hope that told them, “no, you’re not alone.”

I know you think I’m overdramatizing this, but until you’ve had your political identity stifled into a coma, you can’t understand. And in the past two days since the thumbs-up incident, I have had a girl stop by my dorm to thank me for being her fellow Republican, and another message left on my whiteboard saying, “Yay McCain! Finally!” These people have been so starved for allies, fighting so hard not to be force-fed false hope and loose change, that something as simple as a sticker can create a haven for them.

If you’re preaching coexistence, practice it. Let the Republicans of the world thrive, too, and don’t try to shame us for thinking our thoughts. We might not be the media’s favorite children or live beneath rainbows or really, really hate guns, but we have the same liberties as the Democrats next door. Grant us our rightful speaking privileges, if you would be so kind.

And, to the Republicans in the audience, quit shutting up.