History is Made

I have to say that I'm pleased that Obama won, although I remain unconvinced that he was the best choice for the job as president. That's not to say he's a bad choice, but he's not the guy I would have picked for the job if you'd asked me last year.



Oh, don't get me wrong -- I don't believe that McCain was the best choice for president, either. McCain began losing me when he started hiring all the Bushies to run his campaign, and he put a dagger in my heart when he selected Palin as his running mate. His short-sightedness and his incredible lack of judgment in that selection truly stunned me. (And all those pundits who claim she didn't cost him votes have no true understanding of either the electorate or the media. And trying to suggest that she has "credentials" is laugable -- my teen-age son has more credentials than she does.)

But Obama's win is fitting and appropriate given the times in which we live and the disaster that has become our foreign policy, our domestic policy, and our international reputation. "Change" was Obama's buzz word, and it is what is needed. He was careful never to truly define exactly what he wanted to change; instead, he relied on the overarching need for change in general, and that truly is what we need.

One significant change, and what that seems to be overlooked by so many, is one that has already happened. Obama mobilized the electorate. He got people interested in politics and involved in the election and, most importantly, made them believe again in the process. Too many people -- regardless of their political beliefs -- have lost faith in the system we have. They don't believe that their vote can or will ever make a difference, so they don't bother to try. Obama's campaign changed that.

Voter turnout has always been a problem in this country. People focus more on voting for singing and dancing stars than on the people who actually make decisions that have significant impact on their lives. Obama gave people -- black and white, young and old -- who otherwise would not have gotten involved a reason to believe again, and that can't be anything but a good thing. Realizing that a single individual, working with other individuals to make a difference, is the premise upon which this country was founded, and tens of thousands of people who have never believed that before are now believers in the system, and that's good.

Obama will be different, although it won't be as easy for him to be as different as he may want to be. But I'm willing to give him the chance to make a difference, and to bring change, even if it's change back to the way things were before Bush. It would be nice to have the Constitution back in one piece and back on the coffee table, rather than shoved into the back of a dresser drawer in a spare bedroom, which is where Bush seems to have stashed it. It would be nice to have someone look at the world as a global community, rather than as a place that needs to be managed and run by us simply because we can. It would be nice to have someone string together some words in coherent sentences, rather than sound as if he were a high-school drop-out. And it would be nice to have someone who looks statesmanlike, rather than a smirking, mugging buffoon.

A man can dream, can't he?