I had a dream last night. It was the morning after the primaries for the 2008 presidential election, which in my dream were all held on the same day. I had gone to bed early and missed the results, so upon waking I checked online to see who had won.<\/p>\n
Surprisingly, the Democratic nomination went to John Edwards<\/a>, the charismatic Senator from North Carolina who campaigns primarily on the issue of poverty. He hadn’t been my first choice, but I was somewhat pleased to see him win the nomination anyway and I looked forward to the possibility of his winning the presidency.<\/p>\n Even more surprisingly however, the Republican nomination went to Jonathan Edwards<\/a>, the eighteenth-century American revivalist preacher, known primarily for his fire-and-brimstone sermons.<\/p>\n Turning on the television, I was dismayed to see that the media was entirely focused on the fact that both nominees had the same name. They had an expert on doing a statistical analysis of names of politicians to see what the odds of this happening were. I was frustrated, because I felt like the top story should have been that the Republicans nominated a Bible-thumping Puritan from the eighteenth century. Didn’t that concern anyone?<\/p>\n I went into the office – in my dream I worked in an office – and all of my co-workers in this office-type place were absolutely giddy with the coincidence of the two candidates having the same name. I noted that the Republican Jonathan Edwards was a dangerous religious zealot who would destroy all of the freedoms we currently enjoy, but – of course – nobody paid me any mind.<\/p>\n Even so, I woke up more amused than frustrated. And today, I learned that the debate tonight would feature questions being asked by voters via YouTube. So of course, that’s now the story<\/a> far more than anything that was said during the debate. Can I dream ’em or what?<\/p>\n