First and foremost, thank goodness it’s over. Two years is way too long for a political campaign. Unfortunately, I fear the trend will be towards even longer campaigns.
I would have expected the campaigns to be dirtier. Yes, there was plenty of ugliness amongst the extremists on both sides, but the campaigns themselves toyed with the dark side, yet stayed fairly clean.
Having a multi-cultural presidency is a very good thing. The racial scars in the United States are both long and deep, and have been kept open way too long by people on both sides of the spectrum with vested interests. While Obama certainly cannot wave a magic wand and make such problems go away, his clear desire to lead from the middle on this issue may allow true healing to begin. I look forward to the day when having an African-American in the White House is not a big deal.
Currently, the US is neither admired nor feared. While admiration is certainly preferable, I’d at least like to have the begrudging respect that comes from a little healthy fear. Given our state as an empire in decline, fear may be difficult to achieve, but admiration is achievable. Obama is clear step in that direction, but then, anyone would have been an improvement over George W. Bush.
Speaking of which, I can’t wait until January 20th when we get to wave good-bye to the Bush presidency. Hopefully, it’ll be a while until we have another dynastic presidency.
Apparently, anti-homosexuality is alive and well in America (Story 1, Story 2, Story 3). That shouldn’t be surprising; cultural changes take a long time.
Anti-immigration policies are a political loser. Good.
Obama remains something of an unknown. He could be a great president, or he could be absolutely horrible. We really just don’t know. John McCain, however, is very well known. He just isn’t all that palatable. At least Obama has potential upside.
That begs the question, will Obama lead from the middle or take a hard turn to the left? I expect it’ll be one or the other.
I really hope he leads from the middle. He has the opportunity to be a unifying force in America.
Certainly that’s the position he ran on, but some of his “redistribution of wealth” statements in the closing weeks are disturbing. The curmudgeon in me fears that he’ll give into his socialistic tendencies and the siren call of the left. If that happens, look for a resurgence of small-government ideals in 2010.
Perhaps he’ll be like Bill Clinton and founder in his first couple of years, take a beating in the mid-term election, and then lead more wisely from the middle. I wouldn’t mind that.
I’m expecting considerable cognitive dissonance when the populace discovers that Obama can’t fix everything. It will be interesting to see how people handle those two conflicting ideas.
Will he get us out of Iraq? I’d like to believe so, but I’m not sure.
McCain concession speech was quite good. This was the John McCain that we saw in 2000. Where has he been the last two years?
I still don’t like Joe Biden.
Where to, Sarah Palin? I’ll address the fascinating and flawed hockey mom in another post.