My partner Carlos and I have been together for 8 years.  We married 3.5 years ago in Canada in a civil service and had a terrific commitment ceremony in Chicago, celebrating with friends and family.  We have a 4-year old son, one we were blessed with just a year ago and one who brings us joy each day.

For the last several years, I've called Carlos my partner.  I realized that I was uncomfortable calling him husband.  Just sounded odd since nobody did this.

As of today, that all changes.  

Today, I seize our full equality, no longer accepting that our relationship is less than any others, that our family isn't equal.  I have never consciously thought that we were any less, but by not calling him partner, I was surrendering some of our equality.

When I'm referring to him with work colleagues, he'll be my husband. With my neighbors, he'll be my husband too.  In talking with friends, family - yep, my hubbie.  Strangers I chat with at the gym, in stores, on the train will learn of my husband too.

If people start to hear this term, they will start to shift the way they think.  They will start to believe that we are equal in a new way.

I'm lucky  - living in Chicago and being surrounded with very accepting family and friends.  But if we make a concerted effort to change the vocabulary, it can be just one more way we start to shift people's thoughts on same sex marriage.

And I'm celebrating once again - it feels very freeing to have identified this and to start making a political statement only by changing one word I use everyday.

So here's some perspective from the ground in IL-10.  I've made calls for 2 nights this past week and canvassed today.  Generally speaking I see the following trends (below the fold):

My brother-in-law, a die-hard progressive, recently received this deceitful email about Obama (and mind you, I support Edwards).  What interested me most were the responses by people throughout the email thread, not questioning any of the information, but merely reacting to and believing it.  I do not know if any of this information is true, but upon reading it, it all seems like garbage.  I wish I could be surprised by this crap, but it's what  we have come to expect.

As my partner and I watched Barack and Michelle Obama after Iowa, I got chills (in a good way) seeing their image on TV, waving and smiling, and I thought about how amazing it would be for our First Couple to be African-American.  I simultaneously thought that Obama will be assassinated if he is the nominee/President - though a minority, too many people would still feel threatened.  Hate messages like this only reinforce that possibilty.

Below the fold for the hate-mail.

I raised a point earlier this week that pro-Hillary diaries lack substance and don't focus on issues, but center nearly entirely on promoting her inevitability.  georgep pointed me back to his front page blogs, which like most of the other front page weekly candidate posts, focused on issues.

Apart from this guaranteed weekly post, I wanted to see what the other non-scheduled diaries focused on. I analyzed the past 3 weeks, though I recognize a longer period of time may make the numbers vary slightly.  I read for substance and not just the title and here are what the statistics say of the 52 pro-Hillary diaries I read:

Support her due to Poll/Endorsement/or others do - 41 (79%)   
Update on activities (calendar of events) - 7 (13%)
Support her due to her due to the issues she'll fight for - 3 (6%)
Both - Support Hillary due to issue or because others do - 1 (2%)

A full 92% of the diaries focus on either support for Hillary because others support her or an update of her activities, while only 6% focus on issues.  

Read below for the details.

While a large majority of people in the blogosphere seem to have chosen their candidate and firmly back them, my experience in Illinois has shown an opportunity for lots of candidates.  Chris Bowers shares his same thoughts in a recent diary at OpenLeft:

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?dia ryId=1746

Most people I've talked with in Chicago (and I'd say I've talked directly with about 50 people in a detailed manner in the last 2-3 months) are supporting Clinton or Obama.  I support Edwards and have worked to educate people about the differences between Edwards and other candidates.

In my personal experience I have consistently seen that when people are presented with a direct contrast of the positions on specific issues, they are very likely to change or at least open their mind if they support Clinton, and less so if they support Obama.  Frankly, I've been surprised at how easily they were willing to consider Edwards and their level of enthusiasm for him when hearing about the specific issues.

Imagine winning a dozen senate races in 2008.  And the Presidency.  I have a simple suggestion - use video.  Expose the Repugnants for what they are by using their own words.  Remember a most famous ad?  "Read my lips.  No new taxes."  This ad killed Bush I.  The economy was bad and this connected him directly to this issue, with his own words and imagery.  "Macaca" brought down George Allen because it was captured on video.  

Envision...

--Ads running that show McConnell saying it's a "small sacrifice" for families of fallen troops in Iraq
--Pictures of Norm Coleman embracing Bush - several clips saying we need to "stay the course"
--Elizabeth Dole saying why she supports the tax cuts that Bush gave, while showing the impact of the cuts in text superimposed over her.

We should start a collection of all the most devastating video clips and archive them for our progressive candidates to use in their campaigns.  It's late and I'm not sure how we would do this.  Thoughts from anyone?

The League of Conservation Voters has been tracking where all candidates - Democratic and Republican - stand on 5 key issues related to the environment.  You can read a summary here:

http://heatison.3cdn.net/03947f376282772 998_i3m6bagcw.pdf

If you disagree with this factual summary, please take it up with the LCV and not me!  I have volunteered with them and respect their track record, and thus trust them as a source.

My thoughts from reading this:

Read a very interesting article (Read More) about Edwards and his work to earn labor's support.

I have believed and still do that the unions will come through for Edwards and help push him over the top in Iowa.

I did copy this article from my Nation subscription so forgive the shameless plug to subscribe to the Nation - as many of you likely know, it's outstanding!   http://www.thenation.com