There's one thing I can't stand coming out of the Obama campaign: his slogan HOPE. It's on signs and in his speeches, commercials. I keep remembering the what Anderson Cooper said after Mayor Ray Nagin failed to clean up New Orleans yet hoped people would return. Cooper said, "Hope is not a plan." I wish Obama's campaign committee had taken the nuance of this word into account. Every time I hear it it makes me cringe a little. Hope is a good word for things that can't be directly controlled like hoping Elliot walks by his first birthday or hoping Joshua doesn't get the flu between now and when he gets his flu shot next month. And saying "hope for our country" doesn't mean anything. What exactly is someone hoping for when they say that? But hey, in less than a week it will be over one way or another.