It’s Finally Over!

Yes, the election is finally over and to no one’s surprise, it’s not the result I was hoping for, though it was not unexpected either. The US has definitely stepped to the left here. Still, Congratulations to President elect Obama. The over arching sad part here is that each and every Presidential election we go through, the campaigning gets longer and longer and less and less relevant. More than anything else, I am glad this one is behind us.

I must admit that in my pushing 50 years now, this is the most memorable Presidential election that I can recall. Oh, the last one had its moments, but this one was was very different. We had our first major party African American candidate and will have the first African American President. Political beliefs aside, that is a good thing and quite frankly, its overdue and I am still surprised it took us this long. While I am not a supporter of Obama, perhaps this will allow us to put those kind of race and gender discussions finally behind us and just worry about electing the best man/woman for the job.

What amazed me most though, was how folks voted and why they voted for Obama. Or at least in my relatively small sampling of folks whom I talked to that said they were voting for Obama. Almost everyone of them (including my Mother) said they were voting against Bush versus voting for Obama. Last time I checked, Bush wasn’t even a candidate. And no, I don’t buy that voting for McCain was the same as voting for Bush. Not a single one could give me a concrete reason for voting for Obama. The logic of those kind of votes just defies me. Change is not a reason for a vote. Without knowing what change you are voting for, what’s the point? As a person who researches the candidates and issues, and then aligns myself with the one who comes closes to my beliefs, that’s just very strange. Talk about taking a flyer.

During the campaign, Obama was very charismatic and definitely an articulate and captivating speaker. It will be interesting to see who the man behind the mask really is and what his agenda will be. He certainly never discussed it during the campaign in any detail. He had lots of rhetoric about change and other words that folks wanted to hear but was very thin on any kind of details.

And there in lies my hope. Being that he never really said what he was for or what he would do in detail, there is some hope and possibility that Obama will actually do some good things. Unfortunately, the few details he did provide, were the major problems I have with him. There is certainly more upside potential with him than there would have been if Hilary had been the Democratic nominee and won the election.

Some folks at work were joking this morning that they suddenly became rich last night. Or at least they did in the eyes of President elect Obama. I think we are in for an interesting four years and look forward to who this new President really is. Hopefully, I will be pleasantly surprised though I certainly won’t be holding my breath.

A military friend of mine summed it up in his blog last night when he said:

It’s night like this that soldiers man up, salute their new Commander-In-Chief, and go back to doing their jobs without complaint.

In the meantime, with the election over, I can now resume my regularly scheduled personal blogging now and go back to generally avoiding politics here.