Election Day 2008—What’s in a Name?

photo ©2008 Liz Hager

For weeks I’ve been wearing my Obama bling-bling as a talisman, hoping that it would do its charming best to alter the course of the cosmos. (Yes, I was expecting a lot from these 9 letters.)  I woke this morning full of excitement—”the audacity of hope” I guess—and dread. For being a Democrat over the past 8 years has meant living apprehensively—fearful that the polls are woefully inaccurate; scared that the Republicans will find yet other ways to disenfranchise voters; above all,  apprehensive that Democrats would blow it (yet again) on the 2 yard line.  Still, an audacious thought—What If ?— crept into my head.  What if Obama were to win today, what would I do with my kismetic bling-bling tomorrow? After all,  its message appropriate today, would be obsolete tomorrow. Or would it? 

photo ©2008 Liz Hager

An avid childhood Scrabble player, I began to think about the inherent possibilities of rearrangement. Was there a secret message in V-O-T-E-O-B-A-M-A ?  If so, at first not obvious. In desperation, after re-sorting all sorts of combinations in English and trying Spanish (after all Latinos will turn out in record numbers today as well), I hit upon Above a Mot. Lame, I know, to have to resort to French, but still a good first try. There had to be something better.  I resorted to the Scrabble dictionary. 

And then a strategy hit me squarely in the “boot.” The Obama War Chest! I could buy a vowel.   But which one? Today we may make US history. An Obama win wouldn’t exactly be a referendum on racism, but it would go a long way toward demonstrating (to us) that we (a majority of us anyway) are capable of color-blindness. Like a ouiji board, the letters began to reassemble themselves rapidly into the appropriate message: 

photo ©2008 Liz Hager

I’ll take an audacious “O” please.  

photo ©2008 Liz Hager