Post Election Wrapup

What impresses me most about Obama's victory is not that he won, but how he won it. He appealed to our better nature, with a message of hope and unity. He has consistently expected the best of Americans, and 52% of voting Americans responded.

One of the narratives from the commentariat last night was that there was nothing McCain could have done -- the conditions were simply too negative for any Republican to win. I'm not convinced that is true. The McCain campaign lost a lot of people by choosing an unqualified vice-president, and also by playing to the worst impulses of his base, in promoting the narrative of Obama as Scary Other.

However, I'm now going to differentiate "John McCain" from "the McCain campaign." I believe the McCain campaign acted shamelessly at times. But John McCain the man gave an incredibly great concession speech last night, essentially saying that all that mud was just campaigning. I hope the well isn't too poisoned from that campaigning, but McCain's shushing his supporters and offering to help out with the challenges ahead was vintage McCain 2000. I wish he had showed up more during the campaign. But, I'm grateful that he is now offereing to detox the well. Good for him.

Random observations:

• The first sentence on the front page of the NY Times: "Barack Hussein Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States on Tuesday." I guess we can start using his middle name now. Hopefully, the stigma will wear off in the next four years.
  
  
• It was truly touching to see so many African Americans shed tears of joy at the outcome. It was quite a shock to hear all the pundits suddenly talk about race, when it was such a verboten topic before he clinched it. My Smile Politely column is about this.



• It was over when he won Ohio, but it was interesting to see the news media continue to play along for a full hour afterward. Of course, they didn't wait long until the polls closed in California -- I think they called it at 10:00:01 CST.



• The challenge facing Republicans is pretty stark going forward, and it was all revealed at the two rallies last night. Like the conventions, McCain's gathering featured a small group of almost all white people, middle aged and older. The Obama gathering was hundreds of thousands of everyone - black, white, young, old, and everybody in between. As American demographics continue to change, Republicans are going to need to be more than the party of older white people.



• My 9-year-old son has focused on the bodyguards of this election. He's been very interested in how many bodyguards Obama has and what kinds of things they might have to do to protect him. Note that this isn't because he's particularily concerned about Obama's security, but because he desires to have bodyguards of his own one day. When he saw Malia and Sasha on stage (Obama's kids), he asked whether they got bodyguards too, and was really jealous when we said that they did.



• One casualty to this election is my belief that ordinary people could be president. Obviously, Sarah Palin plays into this, but really, it's more about Obama. I'm just egotistical enough to believe that I can do most things, and am as good as most people. But I've come to believe that Obama is extraordinary, in intelligence, in temperment, in judgement, you name it. He's the right man for these time, which would overwhelm an ordinary person. Of course, I'm assuming he will govern as brilliantly as he has campaigned. Let's hope that's true.



• Remember last week when Bush invaded Syria? OK, technically it wasn't an invasion, but a bombing of a foreign, soveriegn country. Still, I was shocked not that it happened, but that there was so little outrage about it (except from the Syrians). What happens if you throw an October Surprise, but nobody comes? I guess no one expects much of anything anymore from Bush.



• I quoted this from Obama's victory speech already, but it is just so exactly right: “Tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity and unyielding hope.”
  
  This is what has been wrong the last eight years. We've thought we could intimidate the world with our weapons and our wealth, without paying much attention to our ideals. The first step in fixing it is being aware of it, and yesterday we took that first step. We have a long way to go to dig out.