and then Barack Obama rescued me from the gunman . . .

Okay this is a weird one.

I had a dream about Barack Obama.

Dreams are tricky things. Sometimes they do mean what they seem to, sometimes they are just random images strung into some sort of surreal story with no real meaning at all.

Regardless, I'm a registered Republican - so it's interesting.

A little background information on my politics: I was raised in an ultra-conservative, but highly educated family. My father was a shrewd businessman, a veteran, and a religious conservative. My mother was his right-hand "wo"man. She was an accountant, a fantastic mom, a well-read lady, and a Sunday school teacher. My brothers were all avid outdoorsmen, business majors, smart good 'ol boys. I was the princess of the family, spoiled but raised pretty strictly.

I loved politics. I loved it since I was about three years old. My home felt the fervor of political seasons and elections. We all debated policies over the breakfast, lunch and dinner table. There wasn't a single day that went by where we didn't all sit down to the 6:00 and the 6:30 news.

I enjoyed history, social studies, geography and political science in school. Now, they weren't my favorite subjects - I was an artsy-fartsy type, after all.

I remember going into the voting polls with my mommy and daddy and turning their little voting levers for them. (They picked the candidate or the issue, and I did the deed.) I remember watching the 1980 elections with delight when Ronald Reagan swept the nation with popular votes. I registered to vote when I was 17 years old, and actually voted in my state's primary at 17. You are allowed to vote in the primaries at age 17, so long as you turn 18 prior to the fall elections. (Betcha didn't know that, did you?)

But, like many young adults, I lost all of this fervor when I went to college and then made my way in the world afterwards. The gloss of it wore away for me, and I became lax. I voted from then on, still voting for my parents' choices, but with little conviction of my own.

I have become a political moderate, and lately a political not-much-at-all. I did manage to convince my highly democratic husband to vote republican for the last two presidential elections, simply because he's so darned concerned about finances. He is what I like to call a fiscal Republican, even if he's a moral Democrat.

I want a change in the U.S. leadership; I really do. But I don't really know what to do for this upcoming election. I mean, my God, I can't find a candidate that I can relate to. (As John Stewart so adroitly labeled it, it really is a cluster f$%^ to the White House.)

I'm a woman, and I would dearly LOVE to have a strong woman in the White House. However, I don't believe in Hillary Clinton. I would have respected her and probably even voted for her if she had left that two-timing sexpot of a husband, and gained the candidacy on her own merits.

I felt like all of the Republican candidates this time have been boring, middle- or senior-aged white men who seem tired. While I admire McCain for being a veteran, I just can't quite join his camp.

I have weird, weird stuff in my head going around about Obama. I liked him a lot when I first saw him on Oprah Winfrey a few years back. However, since then, I have felt more like Oprah herself should be running, rather than Obama. He seems to be only as strong as the strong women around him.

Now, about my dream. I dreamed that I was going to some sort of gathering to hear Obama talk. (Probably because he was coming the next day, and I had heard so on the news.) I didn't get to. I was going up to meet him personally, when out of the crowd a friend of mine from way back in college came up with an uzi and began opening fire. (This friend had romantic feelings for me which I had turned down, but I had no idea he felt so bad about it.) In my dream Obama pulled me out of the way and pulled me into the back of a car away from danger.

Does it mean what I think it means? Does that dream mean that Barack Obama is going to save me? Does it mean that he is meant to save the U.S.? Does it mean that the guy that I knew back in college is crazy? Does it mean that I need to lay off the Diet Coke before bed? What does it mean?

Would I be stupid to vote for Barack Obama because of this dream? I don't feel that he would necessarily be our best national leader. He might well be the lesser of three evils, but I certainly hadn't intended to vote for him. But now? I just don't know.

Anybody?

I certainly won't be telling my dad about this dream; that's for sure!