The Day After

It's still pretty amazing. From out out of obscurity, a dark horse candidate rose to become the most powerful man in the world. A lawyer who came from a humble background built his campaign on bridging divides and challenging Americans to dig deep and think about the promise of the future. A nation sharply polarized on key issues--racial equality, rights, taxation, education. He had incredibly well-written speeches that could turn a crowd silent.

You might think I was talking about the 2008 election. But I could just as easily have been talking about the election of 1860 that put Abraham Lincoln into office.

A backwoods boy who taught himself law, Lincoln struggled through failures and backbiting in his own party to become one of the most influential and greatest presidents in our history. Might we see the same from Barack Obama, whose dad left when he was two and was raised by his mother and grandmother?

As I said in a post yesterday, I've heard several historians talk about shifts that happen over time in party issues. They start off very polarized, work their way towards their middle, and gradually, switch sides. And on other issues, they start off polarized, and one party moves closer to the other party, so that there isn't really any distinction between them. "Climate change" is a good example of this phenomenon. 15 years ago, you'd never hear a Republican say anything about the environment, except that there were some tree-huggers getting in the way of business. Now, it seems like they're at least conscious of the issue. I expect that by the next election cycle, Democrats and Republicans will be trying to out-green each other.

Something that immediately impressed me was the language that Obama uses to talk about the country. He doesn't talk about "us and them," but just "us." Leaders give us a vision. Good leaders instill the vision in us. Great leaders inspire us to accomplish the vision.

I was working last night while watching his speech. At one point, I had to actually typing and pay attention:

This election had many firsts and many stories that will be told for generations. But one that's on my mind tonight's about a woman who cast her ballot in Atlanta. She's a lot like the millions of others who stood in line to make their voice heard in this election except for one thing: Ann Nixon Cooper is 106 years old.

She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldn't vote for two reasons -- because she was a woman and because of the color of her skin.

And tonight, I think about all that she's seen throughout her century in America -- the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we can't, and the people who pressed on with that American creed: Yes we can.

At a time when women's voices were silenced and their hopes dismissed, she lived to see them stand up and speak out and reach for the ballot. Yes we can.

When there was despair in the dust bowl and depression across the land, she saw a nation conquer fear itself with a New Deal, new jobs, a new sense of common purpose. Yes we can.

When the bombs fell on our harbor and tyranny threatened the world, she was there to witness a generation rise to greatness and a democracy was saved. Yes we can.

She was there for the buses in Montgomery, the hoses in Birmingham, a bridge in Selma, and a preacher from Atlanta who told a people that "We Shall Overcome." Yes we can.

A man touched down on the moon, a wall came down in Berlin, a world was connected by our own science and imagination.

And this year, in this election, she touched her finger to a screen, and cast her vote, because after 106 years in America, through the best of times and the darkest of hours, she knows how America can change.

Yes we can.

A tear trickled down my face. If you are not moved by the magnitude of that thought, you might want to make sure you are alive.

I was reading the Facebook comments of a lot of my friends last night and this morning. People expressing disgust and fear, calling us foolish for believing a smooth talker, buying into this liberal idealism.

To those people, I ask:

What if it's not as bad as you think?
What if Obama is this generation's Abraham Lincoln?
What if everything you thought was wrong?
Are you willing to let down your wall and listen?

God gave us one mouth and two ears; besides being more aesthetically pleasing, I think there's something implied there: listen twice as much as you speak.

Not to get all Biblical on you, but James says:

My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.

Give the man a chance. He has earned it. Whether you voted for him or not, he is your president. Lest you forget, the heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord.

Deal accordingly.

Maybe that's what we need--a little idealism. A little optimism that we can make a difference. That if we work together, we can build something great.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Yes we can.

America Made The Right Choice

I just finished listening to Obama's acceptance speech. It was absolutely incredible. I'm sitting here in my cubicle tonight working on projects and have a CNN window up watching the election coverage.

As my wife will attest, I don't get emotional or riled up about much. While she says my even keel is something she loves, it also is something she hates because I don't get very emotional. Tonight, watching him and listening to him speak, I felt something different.

Like America has a chance.

I'm proud of my vote. Proud that as one out of 135 million registered voters, I made the choice to change the course of history.

So I Voted.

I've been struggling with this for months, but this morning, a few minutes after 9:00, I colored in the last circle on my ballot. For Barack Obama.

I'm more than your typical political junkie. I've read everything about every presidential and vice presidential candidate. I know (or think I know) how each would vote in a particular situation. I know about John McCain's adopted children, Sarah Palin's pregnant-out-of-wedlock-daughter, Joe Biden's family tragedy when he was newly elected, and Barack Obama's grandmother who worked at a bank.

I know John McCain comes from a long line of those serving in the military, that Sarah Palin couldn't tell you a newspaper she reads, that Barack Obama taught at the University of Chicago, and that Joe Biden himself said he didn't want to be a candidate.

Sarah Palin is our generation's Dan Quayle. Joe Biden is an older, more refined, Dan Quayle.

I think on about 80% of the issues, you couldn't identify one presidential candidate from the other. Who supports putting the missle defense shield in Poland against Russia's grumbling? If you said John McCain, you'd be wrong. Who thinks that more offshore drilling is part of the short-term answer to our energy crisis? Barack Obama and John McCain both support it. The list goes on.

I've always thought of myself as a Republican. My mom tells a story about me when I was two years old, running around the Whitewater Armory polling location in 1980, shouting "Ronald Regan is a great man!" And he was. "The Great Communicator" is what they called him. But we're far and away from Reaganomics.

I got out my Social Security statement a while ago and was looking at the amount of income that was recorded for each of the last 11 years I've been working full time. The most interesting part? 1997, 1998, 1999, and 2000 were the years I've made the most money. Who was President? William Jefferson Clinton.

While I've always been a subscriber to the thought "the president doesn't have much to do with the economy" or "any changes a president makes aren't seen in his term," the tax returns show I made the most money during his second term in office. I've seen a steady increase in my taxes in the 2000s (one year, we jointly paid over $45,000 in taxes) and not a whole lot of benefit.

Historians say that political parties start out on the extremes, work their way towards the middle, and then after about 50 years of moving toward the middle, flip sides. I think that might explain part of where we are.

Traditional Democratic stronghold issues of global warming, green technology, and the like seem to find an audience on both sides, which I'm very happy to see. I don't understand why being a Republican meant that you had to be big-business and anti-environment. I heard a minister a while ago on the radio make a comment about this to the effect of, "God created the world and us; as Christians, we're entrusted with taking care of it--it shouldn't be the domain of tree huggers." I totally agree.

So last night, my wife and I sat down with the candidates and asked the tough questions. Well, I actually printed out a matrix of 75 questions from procon.org and the candidates' positions on them. I put a check mark under each column where we agreed. At the end, I tallied them up.

Out of 75 questions, both candidates had clear answers for 52, or about 70% of them. Offshore drilling. Abortion, gun control, stem cell research. Medicinal marijuana. Global warming. Russia, China, Korea, and Sudan. Israel. Fuel economy standards, fiscal policy, constitutional law. Iraq, Iran. Corporate taxes, illegal immigrants. On and on.

I learned something about myself. I don't think like my parents did. While both candidates play to the middle, I found that I had 40 check marks in the Obama column, and 35 in the John McCain column.

I was shocked.

We discussed Michigan Proposals 1 and 2. Proposal one was to allow the use and cultivation of medicinal marijuana. My wife was instantly against it, because we're supposed to be anti-drug, right?

But what makes marijuana any less of a drug than Vicodin? The fact that Vicodin comes from your pharmacist in a bottle? I started talking out loud about the last few months of my father's life--he had some very odd blood disorder that caused clots in his muscles. Every time he stood up, the clots would move around and cut off blood flow or pinch other things, causing the physically and emotionally strongest person I knew to break down and cry because of the pain. While my dad was staunchly anti-drug, he was popping 30-40 Vicodin a day to deal with the pain. Can that be any better for you than marijuana?

Checkmark in the Yes column for Proposal 1.

Proposal 2 was about embryonic stem cell research. They look like they may have the best prospects for discovering cures for things like leukemia, parkinson's, and hodgkin's. Proposal 2 was to allow the use of embryos that were leftover from fertility treatments that were going to be thrown away. Of course, Christian advocates call it abortion; is it any more abortion than if the embryos get taken off ice and thrown in the trash can? If Christians were *really* concerned with what happened to embryos left over from fertility treatments, they wouldn't go through procedures like IVF so there wouldn't be the potential to create life that might not get a chance. How does IVF jive with the "God chooses" mentality? "God chooses" as long as you keep trying through every medical means available? Hmm. If we're going to destroy life either way, we might as well reap some potential benefit.

Put a check mark in the Yes column for Proposal 2.

So, at the end of it all, I learned that while I'm for generally lower taxes, I also want to help ensure that my aging mother working a minimum wage job has the opportunity for lower health care costs. I don't want us destroy our planet before my kids grow up by dumping chemicals in rivers or letting factories billow mercury into the air. I don't want to go bombing countries we don't agree with; I think that careful diplomacy should be exercised before a gun ever comes out of a holster. I don't think the United States' sole purpose is to "spread democracy." Some people don't want it. Deal accordingly.

I don't want the fox guarding the hen house in the financial sector. Banks should be responsible with their customers' money, You shouldn't be able to trade stocks you don't have (naked short selling), and you should verify that the people you lend money to have more than a snowballs' chance in hell of paying it back (sub-prime mortgage mess). The ability to leverage $1bn 100:1 only ends up in sadness for someone--to date, the taxpayer has been singing the blues.

I want accountability from my stockbroker. How did we end up paying for AIG and Lehman Brothers' executives to get lucrative pay packages while the entire global economy slipped into recession?

I want to reward business for doing the right thing. I don't want to bail them out for making bad choices.

I'm a little less country, a little more rock and roll. And maybe a little bit more Democrat.