People often talk about “memorable moments” — times where pretty much everybody in the country remembers where they were at that exact time.

There are probably only two of those moments I can remember: the 1989 earthquake during the World Series and the time 9/11 happened. My car was in for service that day, and I was sitting in the lobby of the mechanics watching it on TV.

So now I have a third: watching Barack Obama win the presidency.

We were installing some new blinds in the kitchen while listening to the coverage on NPR, periodically going over to the office to watch the TV coverage on the computer. (Our TV is upstairs right now, so that was more convenient.)

A few minutes before the election was called, I remember Brian Williams saying something like “We’re going to go to local stations now, but you better not walk away. We’ll have some amazing news at the top of the hour.”

We watched that announcement, then saw McCain’s speech, and finally Obama’s speech (missed the first minute or two of it actually). What an amazing evening.

Then seeing the stories of people celebrating all around the country and around the world: the impromptu party in front of the White House Tuesday night, the small gathering at the Lincoln Memorial Wednesday morning, the Obama parties all around the world. And we watched it on TV in our house while Jacob slept. I feel like I missed out somehow.

And to all those who have wondered if America’s beacon still burns as bright, tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity and unyielding hope.

For that is the true genius of America: that America can change. Our union can be perfected.

— Barack Obama, Nov. 4, 2008

I saw the interview on ABC last night and tonight. It surprised me that she quite clearly didn’t understand what the Bush Doctrine is (Charlie Gibson had to explain it to her). She dodged and evaded too many questions to count. Every foreign policy question she turned into an oil question, citing Alaska, as if somehow Alaska has played a key part in international conflict in the last decade.

Charlie asked her about the budget deficit, the economy. He got her implied assent that Bush hadn’t done well, and asked her to name three concrete ways she’d change. She dodged for a minute. He tried again. She cited lower taxes, better oversight, and I forget the third. Anyhow, it didn’t sound very different to me — and not very specific either. It’s so general that everybody from Ron Paul to the green party can agree to it.

He asked her about the deficit, and what she and McCain would do to fix it. She stumbled for a minute, then said “I certainly wouldn’t cut veterans benefits” and spent the next minute talking about how important veterans are. Which is a whole other topic. She never did say how they’d cut the deficit, just that in some magical way, they’d find inefficiencies. McCain’s had over a year to name them, and I haven’t seen the specifics yet.

I came away feeling more concerned about her than I expected. She reminds me of Bush in 2000. Cocky, self-confident, a shallow thinker on every topic, and utterly unprepared.

This process of getting to know McCain’s unknown pick is not going so well, I think.

It may come as no surprise to some of you that I actually enjoy — yes, enjoy — watching political conventions. I’ve spent some time watching them over the past two weeks.

McCain has yet to speak tonight as I write this, but I’ve got to get out a few comments.

First of all, both parties of course were attacking the presidential candidate of the other. But did you notice a key difference? The Democrats attacked McCain on policy, while the McCain people attacked Obama on biography. VP nominee Palin even went so far as to mock Obama’s work 20 years ago as a community organizer. I think that is incredibly telling. It seems to me to indicate that the Republicans know that their policies aren’t working, and are grasping at straws to find something else. There is plenty in McCain’s biography that the Democrats could go after — his involvement in one of the worst scandals in the Senate, for instance — but they aren’t.

What about the other difference? Hope vs. fear. Obama’s speech last week was truly inspiring. I don’t think I’ve ever been inspired by a politician before. Make no mistake about it, he set the bar for himself incredibly high. I don’t think anybody since Kennedy has done that. Obama realizes that there are things we must do as a country, and he also emphasized that the “ask not what your country can do for you” theme. Watching Giulianni and Palin was an exercise in fear-mongering. It’s a constant stream of “9/11 MUSLIM OIL SHORTAGE TERRORISM NUCLEAR BIN LADEN IRAN GAS PRICES RED ALERT PANIC PANIC PANIC MEXICANS 9/11 9/11 9/11 SCARY WAR WAR WAR.” It’s as if they have discovered M-x spook RET in Emacs.

The Democrats, on the other hand, are talking about reducing health care costs, making sure everyone is covered, ending war, making the economy better for working-class people. It’s an interesting disconnect that Obama highlighted well: McCain has said that the American economy has done well over the past 8 years. And indeed, by some “traditional” measures, such as productivity or GDP, it has. But the vast majority of Americans are not better off today than they were 8 years ago. Obama argues that the way McCain measures economic success is way off; our economy is not doing well if the vast majority of regular Americans are not doing well.

Also telling was how both candidates promised to reach across party lines (Bush promised that too). One actually is working to do it. Take abortion, for example. Obama said that he doesn’t agree with the pro-lifers, but surely everyone can agree that providing better funding and support for alternatives to abortion such that it becomes incredibly rare is a good thing. Where’s McCain looking for common ground? And then, of course, we have Palin wanting her family to be off limits — but only when it’s convenient to her.

I’ve voted in the past, but usually as a vote against someone rather than a vote for someone. This year, I’ll make a single vote and do both.

I think that for the first time, when I go to vote this November, I will probably not have to hold my nose as I make a selection for president. I don’t agree with Obama on everything, of course, but the core of what he stands for — that it is time to enter a post-racial, post-partisan time — and that putting the interests of the people before those of the corporation — is a powerful message.

And I’m not the only one that thinks so. One interesting read is Why This 55-Year-Old White Lifelong Republican Wants Obama To Win by Frank Schaeffer. He’s a pro-life, pro-military Republican that actually campaigned for McCain in 2000, and this year he’s supporting Obama. He pointed out another key point: Obama does not play on our fears.

Then there’s A Transformational Moment by Jim Wallis, who grew up in a time when white people that supported civil rights were literally putting their lives on the line. He ends with:

This morning I heard several interviews on NPR with black Americans about their response to Obama’s nomination. One older woman said, “A black man running for president, did you hear what just I said? A black man running for president of the United States ….” She just kept repeating the words, and succinctly captured my own personal feelings.

Yes, it is truly historic, and the U.K. newspaper headlines captured that sentiment as did papers around the world. Nothing could change the image of America around the world more than this. But it is more than historic; it is very personal for many of my generation. A new generation just sees this as natural — he’s an inspirational leader who happens to be black, which matters little to them. But for my generation — I’m dating myself now — this is a transformational moment, one we didn’t think would come in our lifetimes. Race was the issue that changed us, shaped us, determined our path, and even defined the meaning of our faith. Now a black man is running for president of the United States. Amazing grace.

Tom Hayden reflects on the similarities between Obama and RFK, another interesting read. He concludes with:

Those who denounce Obama — and the possibilities of all electoral politics- – should ponder the effectiveness of sitting judgmentally on the sidelines while an Unexpected Future arrives through the sheer will of a new generation. They should consider whether politics and history can be reduced to a fixed determinism that is endlessly repeated, as if there are no surprises. We can have our differences with Obama’s specific policies, as I certainly do, but those should be measured against the prospect that a movement might transform him even as his very rise continues to transform the rest of us.

And now for something less inspiring. If you go look over at the latest blog entry at hillaryclinton.com and read the comments, these readers frankly sound more than a little loony. There are rampant accusations that Obama “stole the election” with the help of the DNC. That makes no sense to me; he followed the rules, and the DNC gave Clinton more delegates than she should have had with the rules as they were at the start of the game (which she supported then). The Obama campaign even rejected a plan that was less favorable to Clinton at the DNC rules committee meeting on Saturday. They also go on and on about how Obama has had so many scandals (though the Clinton real estate scandals really are far more serious than a former pastor). It all looks so very petty, and I wonder why Clinton has whipped up her supporters to such a fervent extent. Perhaps it was an accident, but you’d think things like this are rarely an accident with her.

Ars has an article Previewing McCain and Obama on geek issues that is a thoroughly good read. I find myself agreeing with Obama on everything from net neutrality to privacy rights. I find it interesting that Republicans like to run as advocates of individual liberties but are the ones pushing laws that restrict them the most.

One gripe though: these are issues that are important to everyone. To call them “geek” issues implies that they are only of interest to some, and thus cheapens them. Ars ought to have a better title for their article.