Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Election Day Thoughts

Well, I voted, and I sincerely hope you voted too. Hopefully, just once. The last thing we need is a repeat of The Night of the Living Dead on election day. Of course that may be the case in Barack Obama's hometown of Chicago. In fact, every time I heard him ask his supporters to vote early, that old Chicago saying of "vote early and often" would come to mind. On Chicago election days, "I see dead people" is more than just a tag line from a movie.

It seems like this was the longest campaign ever. Now there will be no more talk and only our votes will determine the winner. All indications are that we will have the first black man as our President. That will be historically significant. But, win or lose, let's not forget that for Barack Obama to even get to this point is, by itself, historically significant. Sarah Palin brings history with her too, in being the first woman V.P. pick for the Republicans. My guess is that Sarah Palin, herself, may have a future shot at the top office.

Whoever wins, that person will be "our" President. It doesn't matter if you agree or don't agree with his policies. Every four years, the policies of the current President are always going to be at least somewhat disagreeable to nearly half of the population. But we should always keep in mind,
that if we don't like what is happening, it is our votes, in two short years, that can address those issues. You can easily send the current President a message by voting out his affiliated Congress members. Then, that President and his political party will understand. It happened when Bush lost Republican control of this last Congress.

If Barack Obama wins, I expect to be a voice of opposition to the policies of his that I disagree with. Everyone can be that voice by telling their elected representatives what they think on specific issues. Even if McCain wins, I expect to be in opposition to some of his policies as well. Some of his past efforts were not worthy of anyone's glowing praise. McCain/Feingold comes to mind as one example.

Regardless of the outcome. I don't see myself writing in this blog as often, but, we'll have to see. Personally, I am glad this process is over. I would hope that campaign funding gets re-addressed so that we don't have this kind of lopsided spending by one candidate over another and over his/her primary opponents. Between McCain and Obama, nearly a billion dollars will have been spent on this endeavor, with nearly two-thirds having been spent by one candidate. That is just too much money. There's got to be a fairer way to run an election.

So today commemorates an ending, and at the same time, a new beginning. Either way it promises to be an interesting next 4 years.

2 comments:

Rob said...

Not sure why you would stop after the election. I enjoy reading your blog nearly everyday. I've gotten my father to read it also.

I hope that after the election you continue to write your blog. I enjoy it very much!!

George B said...

I very much appreciate your comments. Thank you. I had another blog that was similar and ran for nearly 3 years. But less focused on politics. This blog was started because I could see that there was too much that was being hidden behind all the political rhetoric. This blog will always have a political flavor. However, these last few months of politics were, without a doubt, an accelerant as fuel for this blog. In the next couple of months, there will be downtime until the new government gets rolling. That, then, will be my new incentive to write. Please stay tuned; thing will pickup again.