Election Reflections

I know, putting this in God's hands, the right thing for America will be done on November 4.
~~~~~ Sarah Palin

I have to admit that I never though that I'd live to see someone elected president who wasn't 100% white. At the very least, that I would have been much older when it happened than I am now. It was thrilling when he got the nod from the Dems to be their nominee and even more so when I woke up yesterday morning to see that he'd wiped the floor with McCain. I was elated that someone with much more than one drop of African ancestry (proximate, that is) had been elected president. In addition, I was incredibly pleased that McCain would not get to set up shop in the White House with his ignoramus of a sidekick whose self-professed qualifications for the Executive Branch were proximity to the Bering Strait and fecundity.

Despite Barack Obama not being my ideal candidate, his election to the office of President is both historic and very important. But many of my positive feelings were subdued yesterday as I read the news and was reminded that the world doesn't stop while we go to the polls. People's homes are still being foreclosed upon, the auto industry is seeing car sales rapidly decline, our factories are making less, and more and more workers are losing their jobs. Don’t forget that Obama is only the President-Elect which means that George W. Bush is still in office. And he has plans to weaken environmental regulations before heading back to Texas to clear brush. Looking for parting gifts such as giving coal mining operations the right "to dump toxic waste in valleys and streams" and to allow companies to put more pollutants in the air – pollutants that contribute to global warming.

As we sit back enjoying Obama's victory, the Russians are moving missiles into areas near Poland. Plus there's that war Bush started. As we celebrate an impending Obama presidency, families in Afghanistan mourn the deaths of 37 friends and family members, 23 of which were children, apparently at the hands of U.S. forces. This most recent debacle does not help our already strained relations with Afghanistan. Under President Obama (the man who said, "I will end this war in Iraq responsibly, and finish the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taleban in Afghanistan"), we can expect more troops to head over there, more civilians to die, and the defense budget to remain extraordinarily large.

I was also dismayed that California voters decided to amend their constitution to ban gay marriage. Similar measures passed in Arizona and Florida.

On the bright side, Colorado voters defeated an attempt to legally define personhood to "include any human being from the moment of fertilization" while those in South Dakota struck down the idea of banning abortion except in cases of incest or rape. Back in California, intercity passenger rail got a boost by voters who approved Proposition 1A which allocated nearly $10 billion to the California High-Speed Rail Authority to build a rail line from L.A. to San Francisco. The project awaits federal funding, however.

I was also quite pleased to hear that Elizabeth Dole failed in her reelection bid. Her "godless" ad really got in my craw. Not only what is patently misleading, but it was also a slur against anyone who doesn't believe in supernatural deities. Then again, the ad was in a grand American tradition. Take this campaign ad from the election of 1800:

THE GRAND QUESTION STATED

At the present solemn and momentous epoch, the only question to be asked by every American, laying his hand on his heart, is: “Shall I continue in allegiance to

GOD—AND A RELIGIOUS
PRESIDENT;

Or impiously declare for

JEFFERSON—AND NO GOD!!!”