Election Day, Nov. 4, 2008: The 21st Century Begins Today

Where does one even begin? Tonight we made history. In many ways, the 21^st Century begins tomorrow morning. Tonight, by an overwhelming majority, Senator Barack Obama was elected to be the next President of the United States of America. After watching two much-desired Democratic Presidential hopefuls miss the mark in the last two elections to perhaps the worst President in the history of the United States, as much as I hoped for Obama’s win, there was plenty of trepidation and anxiety going into this election.

I fully supported Al Gore’s bid for the Presidency in 2000 but at the same time assumed it to be no contest. How could George W. Bush possibly beat the sitting Vice President of a successful two-term President? Many of us still view that election as having been stolen by a corrupt Republican majority. Nothing will convince us otherwise.

With the utter failure of the Bush Presidential first term, I wanted to make a change but didn’t think we could take it for granted. Those wounds were still fresh after four years and the entry into an essentially illegal war and other policy issues: requiring No Child Left Behind but not funding the program, talking of veterans’ issues and then pulling funding for them, talking of increasing PELL grants and other higher education incentives and then quietly pulling funding. It was a trend that received too little attention in the media.

The Kerry Campaign in 2004 was the first time I donated money to a political campaign. Being an initial Bob Graham supporter, once he left the race I immediately switched allegiance to the Kerry Campaign. This was at a time when Howard Dean was the Democratic darling and a lot of people thought I was making the wrong choice. But Kerry prevailed and became the Democratic nominee. That was the year of the Kerry Mobile. I drove a red mini-van at the time and simply plastered the back of it with different stickers, mostly self-made at the print shop I worked in at the time. There were plenty of slogans and propaganda. But money and stickers weren’t enough. In the end, Ohio and the election went to a Bush second term. It was a devastating blow that left me literally and visibly depressed for days afterward. All of our dire predictions about another term with George W. Bush would come true in spades.

At the Democratic convention in 2004 a young Senator from Illinois was the keynote speaker. He was amazing and received a lot of attention. I put his speech on CDs and handed out copies to people telling them, this is the future. This is the Democratic Party. I said at the time that I would not be at all surprised if he was picked to be Hillary Clinton’s VP pick in the 2008 election. Little did I know that he would end up entering the United States Senate and make a bid for the Presidency all on his own.

In the 2008 primaries I hitched myself to Joe Biden’s campaign. I donated money and tried to talk him up as being an excellent choice with vast foreign policy experience, a good environmental record, and so on. I marked my early ballot here in Arizona for Joe Biden and sent it in. Unfortunately, by the time the Arizona Primary came around Senator Biden was already out of the race. My vote really didn’t count for much, in the end. It was a lesson learned—in hectic primary seasons, hang on to your vote as long as you can.

Once Joe Biden was out of the running, I chose Barack Obama. A lot of my Democratic friends preferred Hillary Clinton, but I remembered Barack’s speech and admired him immensely. Now, as a matter of full disclosure, even in the beginning I admitted that my personal ideology and views on a lot of things were far closer to Dennis Kucinich, Mike Gravel, and Chris Dodd. But I’m also somewhat realistic and new none of them had much chance at this thing. I still admire Chris Dodd to no end. He is a man of integrity and has been the on the right side of so many social issues. He’s a great man to have in the Senate.

I sent my money to Barack Obama and tried to convince people he was the right choice. I again encouraged people to register to vote and to look into Barack’s positions. After a long and often bitter fight, Barack came out successful and received the nomination. I had a lurking hope that he would pick Joe Biden as his VP pick, but never expected it to happen. When it did I was very excited. Here we had what I believed to be the best of the field teaming up to go against John McCain. I was minimally hopeful.

As the campaign wore on for what many thought was a seemingly endless merry-go-round of attacks and blame, Barack Obama remained calmed and focused, unflappable. John McCain picked the horrendously underprepared and intellectually unremarkable Sarah Palin as his running mate. We assume he thought she would peel away the disenfranchised Hillary voters, but not surprisingly, John McCain underestimated the intelligence of women in America. Sarah Palin is anti-environment, anti-choice, an anti-science fundamentalist with no intellectual curiosity and an increasingly obvious lack of knowledge. McCain grew angry and bitter and launched a series of unfounded personal attacks against Barack Obama. The economy melted down and it was all essentially over. America was done with a Republican controlled government.

But enough of all that. They have just announced that Barack Obama is the President Elect of the United States of America. I don’t want to try and say anything for fear of choking up. I know it seems silly to be emotional about this. I don’t have the historical investment of some. However, I had envisioned a world with a dim future and this decision really does seem to bring about the hope that we have been promised by this election. There is a lot of work to be done and some challenges that will be extremely difficult to overcome, but at least we can start taking steps in the right direction.

I sat waiting for results with a sense of hesitant optimism. I was afraid to be too hopeful because I had seen elections ripped away from me before. And I was fully ready to accept the blame if Obama did not win. Yes, I contributed money to the campaign. Yes, I tried to convince people that he was the right answer (sometimes more belligerently than I should have). Yes, I posted to blogs and sent emails. But I did not go door to door. I did not go down and work the phone banks. I did not volunteer and give my time. Part of this is my insecurity and shyness among strangers. There are a lot of things I should do but don’t because of this character flaw. But the whole time I knew I should be doing these things. Yet, I did nothing. So I was ready and willing to accept the blame and the guilt. Fortunately, there were many thousands of people who were willing to volunteer their time and services and they pulled this off. My thanks go out to them.

History has been made. There is no way to emphasize that enough. There was a bigger voter turnout than any election since 1908—considering our nation is on the shy side of 240 years old, a hundred year stretch is a pretty big deal. Voter turnout among minorities was way up; some Latinos are actually claiming credit for Obama’s win! But it’s that notion of minority that is of such import here. We have elected the first African-American President of the United States of America. Slavery was officially abolished 145 years ago with the Emancipation Proclamation. Everyone knows, however, that slavery continued in a de facto manner for many years after that. And any real sense of racial equality has never truly arrived. Again, Obama’s election is historic if for no other reason than the color of his skin (which, wonderfully, actually seems to have been beside the point in the end). I hope there comes a day in the not too distant future when the first part of that sentence seems ridiculous. I don’t think that’s likely, but it’s something to hope for.

I cannot begin to imagine what Obama’s victory must mean to African-Americans. No matter how young, how old, how rich, how impoverished, educated, dressed, or how wide the social circle, each and every brown-skinned person in this country carries a stigma. They might not think about it on a regular basis, or consciously recognize it at all, but it is there. The sense of shared accomplishment and relief that must have come with this election must be nothing short of immense. There must be a sense of burdens being lifted. Shackles have been removed and the automatic sense of limitation no longer needs to be a birthright of African-Americans. I imagine a sense of freedom coming when you might have actually forgotten you were still imprisoned. I hope the feeling is as good or better than I imagine and I hope it lasts until the end.

I am writing this for my grandkids. Four more Presidential elections will come and go before they can vote for a presidential candidate. Will that election be as meaningful as this one? Will it capture the hearts and imaginations of not only our nation, but the world the way this one has? Only time will tell. I only hope that when that time comes it is a time of peace and prosperity and that “oil addiction” is something that has to be looked up in a history book (or something you go and ask grandpa about). I hope they look back at President Barack Obama as one of the historic greats (albeit within their lifetimes) and read about this day as the beginning of a great new era. Right now that is what we envision. Certainly many of us voted for Barack Obama because he is an intellectually curious, reasoned, even-tempered man with good ideas and positions that we see as directly beneficial in the foreseeable future; however, many of us also voted for him for the sake of our children and grandchildren. We are embracing the idea that decisions need to be made based on future generations, not our own short-sighted benefit. We’ve been living for the “now” far too long. It’s time to get back to being a forward looking, forward thinking nation. So, yes, in many ways tomorow marks the real beginning of the 21^st Century. Welcome to the future, Mr. President Elect Obama.