First time

Well, congratulations, Senator McCain and Governor Palin. You have achieved something that Al Gore, John Kerry, and George W. Bush never could: You got me to donate to a political campaign. And it wasn’t yours.

After just two minutes of Governor Palin’s speech last night, I was so disgusted, so angered, so fed up that I forced my father to turn the TV off. I can stand political debate, but I can’t stand thinly veiled personal attacks. I welcome dialogue, but I hate partisan rhetoric. And that’s all Governor Palin’s speech was: Shots at Barack Obama and his speech at Mile High Stadium; snide comments about community organizers; and the insinuation that anyone who supports the Democratic nominee isn’t as patriotic as a gun-toting, immigrant-hating, god-fearing, queer-bashing, war-mongering Republican.

So, this morning, I donated to Senator Obama’s campaign. It wasn’t a big donation, but it was the first time I’d ever been moved to do such a thing. If the McCain-Palin campaign is going to engage in the kind of attacks we saw last night, the Obama-Biden campaign is going to have to come out swinging. And that costs money. It’s the least I can do to help us move past the last eight years that have ruined this country.