I am exuberantly fantastically happy. The pride I feel is new and exciting for me. Obama's win was decisive. The electoral vote count currently sits at 349 to 163 and his popular vote lead is a stunning 53% to 46%. Obama has a mandate that Bush, for one, never had. And here is where people have started to rain on my parade. It started before the election was even over with Newsweek's cover story cautioning Obama about "center-right nation" he might lead. Tonight on the news I heard Nancy Pelosi talking about starting the new legislative session with a children's health care bill, something she pointed out had been passed under Bush. Her message was one of cautious change and moderation.
Remember when Bush took office? He snuck into the presidency with a popular vote loss and a push from the Scalia and he took office like a cowboy. He appointed people with extreme conservative credentials and he started pushing conservative policies with such swagger you'd have thought he'd had a landslide behind him. And he got away with it. In his eight years he systematically undermined every progressive policy of the Clinton era and constructed an administration that has been an unapologetic disaster not just for their image but for the very lives of American and foreign citizens. Throughout all this, even when Democrats managed to take Congress their protests were meek at best.
Here we have a man who has the most liberal record of any senator. He has the most progressive platform of any presidential nominee since before Clinton. And he won decisively, even easily. He won on a message of Change and of Unity all balanced on a very progressive platform. He wants to tax the rich. He wants a new sustainable energy policy. He wants an economy tailored to narrowing the income gap, not widening it. He said in the second debate he thinks we should have the right to health care; this is a phenomenal and radical idea. How is it that we see a man like this get elected so decisively, at this moment in history where the economy is falling apart in such a big way, and the message, even from leaders in his party, is one of baby steps? Oh I remember, its because his party is the democratic one, the party of the spineless.
I believe Obama will be the leader he promised and has already shown himself to be. I will be happy if he appoints a cabinet with diverse politics and expertise. I want a white house full of discussion and argument and careful decision making. But that said, I want the big changes I voted for. I don't think the discussion of where the country sits politically at this point is actually worth asking. Even if this country has been a center right nation what this vote says unarguably is that this nation is ready to try something else. If Obama seizes his moment with the vision he has demonstrated up to now and fulfils the promise of this election he will make a center-left nation. Now, few know for sure what the effect of his ideas might be. This nation has known little else in my lifetime save a conservative corporate friendly government. This election demands that Obama show us something else. If he doesn't he will go down in history as a disappointment. I hardly dare imagine what consequences that might bring. I think Obama won because he has the fortitude and vision that his party is long lacking. Nancy Pelosi's remarks today reminded me that the change has not come yet. She still suffers from that instinct to just roll over. My biggest wish in the coming months is that she's the only one.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Monday, November 3, 2008
Electional Affective Disorder
Tonight it has reached a climax.
My usual voracious reading/listening/watching of all things media has not led me to anything satisfying. Its the calm before the storm, nothings happening, the candidates aren't doing much worth noting and no one is saying anything about them worth listening to. The satisfaction of reading an article about Obama's lead in the polls has melted away. The same stories that made me elated mere weeks ago now just make me a little more on edge, a little more panicked. I go from moments of blissful excitement to fear and panic and stress. Unfortunately my life of late has been teaching me how to dwell in that stress. I can feel each muscle in my back tighten notch by notch. I need to do something.
I find myself trying to connect, to find ways of passing these next 24+ hours that will make me feel apart of history. I'm throwing a party. Today I've spent all afternoon cooking and cleaning and preparing. I find myself working with a focus and a drive that is so unusual to me in these activities. This is the first presidential election since I aged into the right to vote that I haven't been able to volunteer for my candidate. (Medical School will do that to you.) I tried to make up for this by giving money and telling my friends and family to give money, but all the emails in the world from Barack (who has become my most persistent correspondents) fail to make me feel connected in the same way. This year I feel detached from history. I read to feel empowered but when that failed this blog was born. But whoever said "knowledge is power" really must have been doing something with it. Knowledge without action or voice is impotence. And that's how I've felt through much of this election. Even voting was so unsatisfying, filling out the absentee ballot at my kitchen table. At least I'm voting at home and not here in Vermont, I thought. At least this way my vote might get noticed.
In these past few weeks I've become superstitious. Of course I'd never admit to actually believing that sleeping every night in an Obama t-shirt will hold any sway over things, but it seems the right thing to do. There is an L word I won't say but which I fantasize about. And no it's not 'lesbian.' And yes I do think it really could happen. I think Obama is going to take this thing home. I'd say 'I know' but that too might jinx it. I want him to do this early and I want him to do this big. I want there to be no question that the country is behind him.
I cringe when people say his lead is just about the economy. The last two elections should have been about the economy or we might not have ended up in this mess. I hope this crisis teaches people the folly of 'values voting' and that 'fiscal conservatives' are never what they claim to be. But more than anything I hope Obama lives up to the dreams that I have for him. I was so comforted on this front when he was on the daily show the other night and talked about this moment in history as a time when a leader like himself has the opportunity to make big substantive changes. Those aren't exactly his words but the ones he chose surprised me in their scope. This wasn't the centrist timidity of elections-past. This was what I was voting for. The left has such a bad rap in this country. Sarah Palin tosses the word socialist about like an slur and yet she gives everyone in her state a check from the profits of their shared natural resources. We need a new left. A left that isn't communism, and isn't socialism, but where those words can be used in a conversation of ideas without striking fear. We need a left where belief in the free market isn't as ubiquitous a part of a candidates platform as belief in god. Indeed where either of those are not a prerequisite. And even as I sit, with the happy ending yet to be written, Allan Greenspan doesn't even believe in the free market anymore. I never thought I'd write that, and I've been believing in change now for a long time. I don't think I'll be disappointed.
My usual voracious reading/listening/watching of all things media has not led me to anything satisfying. Its the calm before the storm, nothings happening, the candidates aren't doing much worth noting and no one is saying anything about them worth listening to. The satisfaction of reading an article about Obama's lead in the polls has melted away. The same stories that made me elated mere weeks ago now just make me a little more on edge, a little more panicked. I go from moments of blissful excitement to fear and panic and stress. Unfortunately my life of late has been teaching me how to dwell in that stress. I can feel each muscle in my back tighten notch by notch. I need to do something.
I find myself trying to connect, to find ways of passing these next 24+ hours that will make me feel apart of history. I'm throwing a party. Today I've spent all afternoon cooking and cleaning and preparing. I find myself working with a focus and a drive that is so unusual to me in these activities. This is the first presidential election since I aged into the right to vote that I haven't been able to volunteer for my candidate. (Medical School will do that to you.) I tried to make up for this by giving money and telling my friends and family to give money, but all the emails in the world from Barack (who has become my most persistent correspondents) fail to make me feel connected in the same way. This year I feel detached from history. I read to feel empowered but when that failed this blog was born. But whoever said "knowledge is power" really must have been doing something with it. Knowledge without action or voice is impotence. And that's how I've felt through much of this election. Even voting was so unsatisfying, filling out the absentee ballot at my kitchen table. At least I'm voting at home and not here in Vermont, I thought. At least this way my vote might get noticed.
In these past few weeks I've become superstitious. Of course I'd never admit to actually believing that sleeping every night in an Obama t-shirt will hold any sway over things, but it seems the right thing to do. There is an L word I won't say but which I fantasize about. And no it's not 'lesbian.' And yes I do think it really could happen. I think Obama is going to take this thing home. I'd say 'I know' but that too might jinx it. I want him to do this early and I want him to do this big. I want there to be no question that the country is behind him.
I cringe when people say his lead is just about the economy. The last two elections should have been about the economy or we might not have ended up in this mess. I hope this crisis teaches people the folly of 'values voting' and that 'fiscal conservatives' are never what they claim to be. But more than anything I hope Obama lives up to the dreams that I have for him. I was so comforted on this front when he was on the daily show the other night and talked about this moment in history as a time when a leader like himself has the opportunity to make big substantive changes. Those aren't exactly his words but the ones he chose surprised me in their scope. This wasn't the centrist timidity of elections-past. This was what I was voting for. The left has such a bad rap in this country. Sarah Palin tosses the word socialist about like an slur and yet she gives everyone in her state a check from the profits of their shared natural resources. We need a new left. A left that isn't communism, and isn't socialism, but where those words can be used in a conversation of ideas without striking fear. We need a left where belief in the free market isn't as ubiquitous a part of a candidates platform as belief in god. Indeed where either of those are not a prerequisite. And even as I sit, with the happy ending yet to be written, Allan Greenspan doesn't even believe in the free market anymore. I never thought I'd write that, and I've been believing in change now for a long time. I don't think I'll be disappointed.
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