A Sad Day for America

A VIABLE ALTERNATIVE (FANCY TALK FOR A THIRD PARTY)

"The people have spoken, and whenever the people speak, it's a great thing."
Richard J. Daley, Mayor of Chicago, 1955-1976

The people have indeed spoken, as they have for the entire history of our country, and the people speaking is indeed a great thing. The Old Man knew what he was talking about.

Once again, this coming January, there will be a peaceful transition of power, not just from one person to another, but in this instance, from one political party to another. That the United States has been doing this for so long, over 200 years, is unprecedented in the history of the world. That makes it a great day.

History is also being made because of the color of the president-elect. Barack Obama will be the first black president. This comes a scant 60 years or so since "Amos and Andy" made white folk laugh throughout this land of ours at their racist antics. America has matured and grown wiser. That makes it a great day.

It's a great day and it is concurrently a sad day for America.

It's not a sad day simply because Barack Obama was elected president, and he's not someone I particularly care for. Never has a man with so thin a resume gone so far so quickly.

It's sad because he was one of only two presidential candidates with a realistic chance to win the election. We should have more, and perhaps, better choices than just Republicans and Democrats.

It's a sad day because neither Obama nor John McCain are particularly qualified to hold the office of the presidency. Neither one has any great vision for the United States, something that is especially troubling because the times in which we live are especially troubling.

Obama does offer up the rhetoric of hope, and it is this positive message that voters responded to. I do prefer a positive message to a negative one any day.

However, while Barack Obama is a thoughtful and intelligent person, and McCain has served his country admirably and then some, neither offers up anything that we haven't seen before. At his core, if Obama indeed has an ideological core, is another tax raising liberal Democrat. McCain is another in a long line of Republicans since Reagan left office who suffer from stodgy thinking, or in the case of our current president, not much thinking at all. Essentially, while these two candidates seem to be different from what we've been offered before, they are not. And the American public won't be getting anything different until we take seriously the need for a third party, one that will genuinely challenge the status-quo.

LEADERSHIP

What kind of leader Barack Obama becomes obviously remains to be seen, but my hopes are not high. In the manner of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, Obama will likely turn out to be someone who was very good at attaining the White House, but didn't know what to do once he got there.

Obama has never really been a leader of anything; for most of his adult life, he seems to have been either running for president, or setting the path to his presidential bid. It will be interesting, and not a little frightening, to see how Obama deals with the bullies of the world. Already, Russia has indicated it will install missiles near the border with Poland, and will attempt to jam any anti-missile defense system we install there. The reactions of Obama to situations like this will be telling. Personally, I would have preferred John McCain to stare down the Russian bear. He would be good at that.

WINNERS AND LOSERS

McCain lost the election for a number of reasons, one of which is that it's a bad year in general to be a Republican, what with that incumbent Republican president hovering at around a 20% approval rating and a war no one wants to think about anymore. McCain also didn't state his case particularly well or fervently. Most important though is that the economy has gone down the crapper. When that happens in an election year, the party in power usually gets the boot. It really is the economy, stupid. Or it's a stupid economy, or something like that.

Obama won the election because he is the current Leader of the Cult of Personality. He is young and handsome and looks good in a suit. He appeared many times to be more presidential than John McCain. Obama is articulate in a way George W. Bush doesn't even bother to dream about and he speaks in positive generalities that seem to both inspire and reassure an electorate yearning for something more from a president than arrogance and ignorant bravado.

For these reasons, and others, of course, the Democrats are In, the Republicans are Out. Good can come out of this stomping the Republicans took though, but only if they play it smart. There are still some smart Republicans out there, aren't there?

If there are, here's what they need to do. They need to get together, hunker down on the ground, and try to remember what it was that once made a Republican like Ronald Reagan so darn popular. Lower taxes for everybody, not just the wealthy. Smaller government, and don't use an excuse like 9/11 to frighten everyone into allowing you to grow the federal government in a way that Democrats would dream about, if they dared.

If Republicans talk low taxes and smaller government and come up with viable ways to grow the economy, they will be able to make inroads with the middle class again. Speaking of whom, Republicans need to figure just who is the middle class in America right now. It's not just white folks fed up with liberal Democrats, as it was back in the early '80s. The middle-class is multi-hued and consists of Hispanics and blacks and all the other colors of the melting pot and if the Republicans can't figure out a way to talk nice to these people, they will never regain power again.

Republicans also need to behave like Republicans again, specifically, like fiscal conservatives. A Republican government that more than willingly gives away over $700 billion is not truly Republican and certainly not fiscally conservative.

Oh, and no fear mongering. Karl Rove types and neo-conservatives need not apply to the Republican party of the future.

SARAH SMILE

Sarah Palin is not stupid. Some people, even Republicans, think she is. She will come back to bite those people on the ass, if she so chooses.

It's obvious that Palin appeals to a certain base of the Republican party. But the energy she exudes and her appeal to average people go beyond that base. She just needs a little "My Fair Lady" type mentoring: No winking at the camera during a debate. That may work with the boys in Alaska, but it doesn't look very professional. Keep the "you betcha's" to a minimum. Learn about Supreme Court rulings and international politics. Do those things, and you'll be fine, Madame President.

IS COME UPPANCE ONE WORD, OR TWO? AND AM I SPELLING IT RIGHT?

The only other good thing about the Obama victory is that Fox News and Rush Limbaugh have been shown to have only marginal influence on anybody beyond their hardcore fan base. You know, these guys can be right about a lot of things, but they're just so damn annoying and smug.

The writing was on the wall for Limbaugh earlier in the year when he saw the candidate of his choosing, Mitt Romney, go down in flames. I think he finally began to understand that while he may have 20 million listeners, they're not all listening so that they can go out and do his bidding like good little Ditto-heads. Limbaugh began to position himself as an entertainer who just happens to talk politics constantly, all day and every day. Whatever.

THE END

It will be an interesting four years. This country has survived many calamities and it will survive an Obama presidency.