Some Post Election Thoughts

This was actually started Sunday, November 9, but finished yesterday, so I'll date it November 10

It is now six days after the election, and we are all coming down just a bit from our high. I wrote an article that Sunday morning was featured on http://www.bonjourparis.com/ entitled “I Guess I’m Not Moving to France” in which I described both my neurotic fear the evening of November 4 that something would, yet again, go wrong, and my euphoric celebratory mood when our guy prevailed . I really, for the first time, had trepidation about living under a possible Presidency. Bush had won two elections, as had his father and Reagon and Ford and Nixon, and even though I have always been a progressive Democrat , I have never felt this level of naked fear when confronted with the spector of a win by one of the candidates ( or quite this level of optimism when thinking of the other candidate - at least not since John F Kennedy).
I found myself so nervous during this election cycle, for the first time ever, that I repeatedly throughout each day turned on CNN and MSNBC and Fox (to get all sides and, thereby, the “truth” if possible – whatever inexact and uncertain level of “truth” that had to be until the availability of the only real truth ( if not impacted by theft and fraud) – the actions of voters in the booths on the first Tuesday in November.) I also spent a ridiculous amount of daily time reading blogs and news reports online (sometimes several times a day) , including the Tribune, New Yorker, Washington Post, Politico.com, Huffington, and even Newsmax and other sites and emails, and even a daily (and sometimes twice daily) e mail with poll results. I tried in this fashion to calm my stomach so I could concentrate on other things. It never worked except for short spurts of time. Otherwise, I was for months swinging between various levels of nervous-wreck and basket-case.
No, I can’t remember ever feeling this level of fear around an election. Perhaps, it was because of the high level of anxiety produced by the international and national circumstance of wars and terrorism and economic cataclysm. I am sure that is part of it. Perhaps it is because I am more aware now of the world and government and how much danger we are all in on both a physical and social leverl. However, reflecting on it, I've decided that the biggest part was the clear distinction between the personas of John McCain and Barack Obama.
I first heard of Barack Obama several years ago, introduced at a meeting by Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky who I have known for 56 years. At that first meeting, he appeared to be a shy, slight, underwhelming person. Then, like the multitude, I heard him speak at the 2004 Democratic convention, and like the rest, I was floored, impressed, and touched. I heard that he had authored a book after law school, and I looked for it online. “Dreams of My Father” was long out of print I discovered, and selling for astronomical prices on EBay. So I waited. Not long after that, a new paperback version came out, which reproduced the Convention speech in the front. I was one of the first, I think, to purchase it at Borders - sprinting down Michigan Avenue when they called to tell me it was in stock finally. I could not stop reading once I had started. I was enthralled. As a writer, I could respect and adore his way with words. But also, I felt the real emotion and attention to truth in that book. He really wanted to tell his story the way he felt it. I was impressed with his ability as a writer, with his intellect, and with his lack of artifice even when delving into his inner self. It was a revelation.
Though I followed his career, I was generally too involved in my law practice and my personal stuff to read very much about him, or even read more than the most important articles in my daily newspapers.
One time, I did call his state senate office when I needed to get some help for the local grocery store; and I voted for him when he ran for U.S. Senate.
Then, I talked one day to someone in government who is a friend, and who told me that she felt that he would be the best candidate to finally arouse the excitement in the Democratic party that had long been missing.
At first, I thought it was too soon. He was too young.
Nevertheless, I too felt that we all needed to be aroused from our lethargy. After two Bush wins, and six years of gritting my teeth every time his thin lipped arrogant face appeared on the tv screen, of wondering how someone with so little sense of what is required of that office, someone who never had a big thought, someone led around by self promoting father figures with repugnant values and moral vaccuums in their souls; after six years of turning his face to the wall whenever I walked through Borders……………..of watching two pretty good men (who I voted for) lose, and being disappointed, but realizing that I wasn’t particularly excited about either of them in the first place…………….I guess I could relate to the concept that I wanted my heart to be aroused…………………………
(I just remembered a poem I wrote in High School for the literary magazine – about needing leaders. Real leaders. I’ll have to look for it. I think I wrote it at about the same time as Jan Schakowski wrote a poem for the same magazine, about running for office. Have to find that one too. )
Then I started reading “Audacity of Hope” and for the first time, I discovered someone with the capability of analyzing the great issues of the day in a way that reached out to me. He wrote with a heart and honest introspection and an accepting mode , he believed strongly that no one needs to be demonized – or should be – since all sides of various questions need to understand that they are not really on opposite “sides” but more often than not various gradations. Though I found in each chapter places where my head nodded up and down and I punched my fist on the table and said “yes”! (that hasn’t happened in a very long time while reading a book by a politician), I think that the one thought permeating the book that got to me the most was his insistence that the way in which parties, and people have been forced to be “for” or “against” each other on issues – because of the enforced polarization that this political world has decided is the norm –that this was just, plain, dead wrong. That we should all listen to each other . That while we cannot and should not necessarily find a “middle” ground (splitting the difference is not a way to resolve issues, just a way to share pastries), but talk about where it is that we can agree, not necessarily where it is that we differ. And there were many examples. At this point, I may be combining parts of the book with his wonderful speech at the time of the Reverand Wright fiasco. It's not relevant. What is important, is that it is clear that he could understand the white man without a job who was afraid, and therefore became antagonistic towards all affirmative acation, as much as the old black man who couldn’t forget about past injustices and embarrassments . I loved that idea. That had always been my idea. So many of the thoughts in that book were just more articulate ways of saying what I had always felt. I connected with him.

During the election, I always carried a copy of the book with me, and when confronted with someone who said “well, I may vote for Obama, but just because he is thelesser of two evils” or someone who really was afraid of Obama, or thought him not sufficiently experienced – anyone who I thought could be convinced, I would give away the book, and go buy another.
And then there was John McCain –
Every time the spector of a possible Obama loss made me totally crazy, I would snarl or scream or just flatly state to friends (or whomever was around to listen) something like “If McCain and Palin win- I’m out of here! I’ll figure out some way to move to France!” McCain scared the shit out of me – even more so than George Bush, would you believe. I could not picture feeling safe in this dangerous world with someone in the White House with McCain’s characteristics. Sure, I didn’t agree with his policies – many of them, such as his pro life positions. And he had changed positions on some of his historic policies for the purpose of the election (a bit frightening in itself). But that wasn't the derivation of the fear and anger. At one time I had sort of liked his quirkiness and his apparent maverickness and independant stance on some issues. But what made me shake now was the man himself - what we saw of the man of today, his demeanor, his methodology of dealing with problems, his temperament, his decision making skills, etc. !...............................It is clear that many issues needing to be dealt with in this complex and ever changing global community are those not previously handled by our chief executive (9-11, and the New Orleans disaster, for example), and whoever is in that position MUST be a person who is grounded, and smart, and educated, and willing to think things through and listen to other smart people, but also make quick decisions when necessary – someone with a moral compass and an understanding that complex issues cannot ever be reduced to sound bites – someone that exudes the confidence and strong underpinnings of a leader.
John McCain had showed strong character many years ago when he was a prisoner of war, and from time to time in the past showed himself to be spunky and willing to buck those in power, but ever since he won the primary – which must have been an unexpected jolt, and required him to kowtow to the Republican party “base” and the Bushies – out came McCain’s phoniness, his little thin lipped smirk or nervous smile , and his well documented petulance and lack of anger management, and, most importantly, the most desperately horrific characteristic that jumped out during these last months was his proclivity to make seat of his pants decisions just for their shock value rather than thinking anything through – maybe a fun trait in an also- ran but a frightening and deadly trait in the “leader of the free world.” He lost any of the credibility derived from his past spunkiness and honor , and became an almost robotic characature of a politician, talking in preconceived regurgitated vitriolic bites, choosing an unqualified running mate because she could draw excited crowds, incapable of hiding his disdain for Obama (because of his age? his race? or just because he was unexpectedly standing in the way of this, his last chance to rise to the top?) showing a willingness to take an “I’ll do or say anything” tactic in order to win……………………..
And now Barack Obama is President Elect. He is not a perfect man, none of us are. But he wants to make it better, and he wants to listen, and he wants to act, and he knows that he doesn’t know everything, and he is willing to take baby steps when necessary and big steps when needed, and he wants to be inclusive, and he has come from so many different places – racial, economic, national – that he is truly capable of understanding so many points of view.
I don’t think we can do better than that..
Whether I can be labeled – a progressive, a humanist, a Democrat, an Independent, who knows………or , ignoring labels, someone who just believes that government needs to make the world a better place for everyone, to the extent that it can, since this inures to the benefit of all – and that freedom of choice is a basic and critical part of being an American – choice in sexual and marriage partners, choice in whether or not to carry a child, choice in occupation and business whether or not you are female or someone of color or someone with an accent. ( Is that a Progressive? Is that a Democratic? I don’t know. ) , for the first time in years, I really have hope.
. Bill O’Reillyof Fox News is still saying “The guy is still a mystery, so our oversight will be intense.” And another pundit on Fox News yesterday morning railed against the liberal press, opining with vehemence and furrowed brow that the Press elected Obama by favoring him so strongly and giving him such a pass. And Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, a Republican who just squeaked out a victory (having problems partly because of her Obama statements) had told Chris Matthews of MSNBC that, when it came to Mr. Obama, “I’m very concerned that he may have anti-American views,” but she is now saying that she is “extremely grateful that we have an African-American who has won this year,” and calling the Obama win (including in her state) “a tremendous signal we sent.”
Some things are still the same, but I feel that things are changing, and I don’t want to miss any of it.