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Monday, November 03, 2008 8:43 PM: Eleventh-Hour Election Post Election Day is tomorrow. I suppose it's past time I posted my take on it... All things considered, I'm feeling really good about this election. Four years ago, I explained why I wasn't going to vote for any of the major-party candidates. (In the end, I did write in "Al Sharpton" as my protest vote.) There are, of course, intelligent positions for wanting either George Bush or John Kerry to be running the country for the next four years. If you think that either of them is well suited for the job -- if you really and truly want either of them running the country, as opposed to merely preferring one over the other -- then by all means, I encourage you to go ahead and vote for the one of your choice. That's the way the process is supposed to work.As it stood, I was unhappy that Dubya won, but equally relieved that Kerry lost. Both of those feelings have remained strong in the four years that followed. By contrast, this time around we've somehow been blessed with two major-party candidates who appear capable of doing the job competently. Short of one of them dropping dead and promoting one of the potential veeps—down the rabbit hole of what-ifs lies madness—there's no bad outcome here. No matter what happens tomorrow, the country wins. This assessment is predicated on the assumption (hope?) that, once past the election, the candidates will snap out of campaign mode and revert to their normal selves. Judging either Obama or McCain on the drivel they and their campaigns have been spewing for months now, I'd have to conclude that they're just a pair of dirty lying politicians and go through yet another election cycle voting for someone other than the top two choices. (Calling McCain a clone of Dubya is as ludicrous as calling Obama a socialist, and vice-versa.) But I'd rather believe that each candidate has concluded that it's impossible to win a U.S. presidential election by fighting fair. If I were more cynical, I might even conclude that they were right; as it stands, while both have disappointed me, I'm inclined to judge them by their non-campaign modes. There's more to go on in McCain's case, and I suspect that he's actually better equipped to be an effective president than Obama is at this point. He does have more experience: in general, in Washington, and in working across party lines. And if Obama is elected, I am going to be fervently hoping the conservative members of the SCOTUS hang in there until a non-litmus-test based administration gets in. Still, there are legitimate policy disagreements between McCain and Obama, I prefer the latter's positions more often than not, and I do think he'd be competent at the job... so tomorrow I plan on gritting my teeth and muttering darkly while flipping the little lever next to his name. But after that, I'm going to be happy no matter what. It's nice to feel able to vote for a major-party candidate for only the second time in five presidential elections. It's even nicer to have both candidates be somebody I could see myself voting for. Some days, it's nice to be an American. I think this one's worth celebrating. Comments by HaloScan. |
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