The amazing crossroads of democracy and infomercials.

When I was six years old, Michael Dukakis and George H.W. Bush were in the midst of their presidential campaigns. A week before the election, Fields Road Elementary School held a mock election. Purely an exercise in finding out how our parents were going to vote. Proudly I stepped up to the table and took a slip of paper in my hands. For weeks and months I had listened to my grandmother and mother talk about the evils of Bush and the republican party, and based on their influence, I checked the box next to Dukakis's name. In the end, Bush won the mock election at my elementary school and went on to win the general election.

Flashforward four years, at the age of ten I was still blissfully unaware of how the political machine really worked. I loved simplicity and words. One night when I was laying on the living room couch with my grandmother watching the evening news, I made the statement, "democrat sounds ugly. I would rather be a republican, it sounds pretty." My staunchly democratic grandmother, who frequently told stories of the glory of FDR, the tragedy of MLK's assassination, and how she vomitted when Bobby Kennedy was shot, did not proceed to lecture me on the evils of the republican party, but instead made fun of me for my strange way of choosing a political party.

As I grew up, I began to learn more about the world around me. I came to the conclusion that while republican is still a nicer sounding word, the democratic party, for all of its faults, was much truer to who i was becoming as a person. As I've grown up working and the living in the hearts of two democratic cities, my liberalism, although more moderate than some of my dearest friends, is now inescapable.

Tonight I watched the first night of the Democratic National Convention. I watched it on PBS because CNN and MSNBC anchors irritate me. I found myself engrossed in the speeches, captivated by the rhetoric, and completely obsessed with everything democratic. It truly is the nation's biggest infomerical and I couldn't turn it off. I cheered for Ted Kennedy, and chanted with Nancy Pelosi. I teared up at Michelle Obama.

Trite as the speeches may be, tonight I fell for it all. The great thing about an election year is that it's okay to get caught up every now and again, hoping that this time your man will win and things might get a little better. Even when you know it's just that place where democracy meets infomercial.