Final Election Thoughts Before We Move On (or so we can move on…)

Politics, and this historic presidential election in particular, seemed to be the only thing that dominated public discourse, popular culture, and this blog for the past two months. It’s finally over, but I have a few closing thoughts about the election and the state of the country before we move on.

Let me begin by congratulating President-elect Barack Obama, and his campaign. I must confess that while not everyone, including Democrats, believe he is that great I happen to believe he will be noted as one of the top 3 or 4 greatest Presidents of all time. I think his personality, speaking skills, background, political theories, and, yes, skin color will lift him to at least “Top 20″ status before even taking the oath. Bill Maher has called him the Jackie Robinson of politics and that holds true for a number of reasons. Jackie was the rookie of the year in his barrier-breaking season and became the MVP shortly thereafter. So not only did he “happen to be black,” he was a darn good baseball player to boot. Talent certainly makes shattering stereotypes easier. And most importantly, if it wasn’t going to be Obama than who was going to be our first minority? He’s talented, for the reasons I’ve mentioned above, and he did not want to be pitied or use white guilt to get elected; he used his policies to speak for themselves.

Obama’s campaign, without a doubt, has set the new standard for Presidential races. The painstaking deliberation, forethought, and holistic understanding that went into every decision they made is almost impossible to imagine. The money they raised (from 3.2 million contributors) is mind boggling. They never stopped and it paid off.

The first post-election question I have, however, is “what if?” What I mean by that is the Democrats ran a flawless campaign. They nominated a charismatic, uniting candidate. The economy is in shambles. The rest of the world does not have a good idea of us anymore. The campaign McCain became the figure head for might be documented in political science books for decades to come as the “what not to do” example. They never stuck to their message. They chose an unknown, nationally uninformed governor (who just happened to be very attractive?) from a state no one hears about except in relation to a wildlife reserve. Their economic adviser calls Americans whiners. [I recently received an email explaining all the differences between the Columbia/ Harvard grad and the man who finished 4th from the bottom out of over 850 at the naval academy; the community organizer vs. a man who crashed a million dollar plane 6 times; one married one vs. one divorced his wife after a disfiguring car accident, etc.] What I am trying to say here is what if even one of these things went the other way? Is this how crazy the country has to get and how lopsided the campaigns have to become for the Democrats to win an election? And while it might have been by a safe margin, it was by no means a land slide……..

One of the most respected men in American politics, Colin Powell, publicly endorsed Obama and while on meet the press he brought up an interesting point: in regards to the McCain supporters attacking Obama for being a Muslim Powell retorted with, “So what if he was?” Yes! What if he was? There is nothing in the Constitution that says you can’t be. Is it easier to hide your racism if he is Muslim instead of Black? There was another so what in North Carolina. Elizabeth Dole (who lost) attacked her opponent for consorting with Atheist organizations. So what! There is nothing in the Constitution that says you can’t be a Muslim and nothing that says you have to be a Christian… Luckily, so many personal attacks from the Right only distracted a little bit. It was actually amazing at times to see how effective McCain’s personal attacks were. He convinced his followers Obama was a terrorist, un-American, a Muslim, etc; so much so that he actually had to calm his rallies down because they were getting violent. After controlling those, he switched to Socialist and that stuck like sweat beads on Joe the Plumber’s forehead. I watched an episode of the West Wing last weekend and the Democratic President was in a town hall meeting and jokingly said to the man in the back, “you’re getting ready to call me a Socialist aren’t you?” That was 10 years ago! Find some new material guys! Taxes distribute wealth, democrats didn’t invent the idea of taxing. Find some new material.

On a different topic, Florida, and I would assume other states as well, did pass a Marriage Protection amendment…. by something like a 66% to 33% margin. I won’t get into all my philosophies because this is my most passionate social cause but it is just sad to see that the progress that we are making is still in small steps.

I am estatic about the political future of the country. I literally weep everytime I see footage of the hundreds of thousands of people cheering all over the country and world for the victory of Barack Obama. As his acceptance speech suggested, he will listen to all sides, especially when they disagree. I will try to do the same in my political converations to come. We now have a President we can unite behind and I am excited about the possibilities for the new future of this country.