Voting

When I cast my vote a few minutes ago, I felt a little choked up. For one, when I vote, I feel lucky that I have some reasonable certainty that my vote will be counted (at least in this election). On the Likert scale, I’d choose “I agree somewhat.” In the 90s I would have chosen “strongly agree,” but we all know the awful stories and all about the cronies who control the machines.

The other reason, the primary one (so to speak) why I felt a little tickle in my throat is that when I pushed the “cast ballot” button, I voted for a change, a change for which our country has long awaited. I’m hopeful once again. With Obama, there is a prospect of a president who is still close to his ideals, who hasn’t been in Washington long enough to be ruined by the tit-for-tat game of politics, compromising his fundamental beliefs and selling out on one count to get his way on something else.

Maybe I’m wrong and Obama isn’t all he promises, but from where I stand now, I see a man who is intelligent, thoughtful, articulate, and values the people and the future of this country. I believe that he will make decisions that have nothing to do with growing his own purse, that he won’t be in Washington because he has an ego bigger than the state of Texas. It will be refreshing to have a president who has integrity, who refused to participate in the mud-slinging, who is so good that he could be elected for who he is and what he stands for, instead of lifting himself up only by pushing others down through lies and spin and hatefulness.

There will be a lot of pressure on Obama. He will inherit a costly war that seems to have no desirable way out, an economy is that is floundering by many counts, a staggering national debt, a country with a lot of corporate welfare and comparatively little social welfare, an agenda to reform the health care industry, and damaged foreign relations. He has his work cut out for him. Obama will succeed though, better than maybe anyone else could. His ego will not blind him the way it does others. He will be open to diverse opinions and will be able to make informed choices instead of operating in a tightly-controlled, single-focused, top-down hierarchy of secret agendas where only “facts” that concur are discussed. Obama won’t have to wait on creating green policies while he rearranges his stock portfolio. Obama won’t have to disguise pro-pollution laws in environmentally-friendly names.

Obama’s election campaign showed us his cool-headed poise and grace, his ability to think quickly on his feet and respond eloquently when he had no scripts to tell him what to say. The only controversies with Obama were contrived and hollow. For the voters who couldn’t see through them, Obama responded with characteristic dignity and brilliance.

Obama’s agenda will be what is best for our country as a whole. Perhaps he will help re-create a country that we’ll be proud to pass to future generations.

That is what I see in Obama and that is why I am hopeful today.

This entry was posted on May 6, 2008 at 9:22 am and is filed under Inspiration, Ponderings/Musings, Charlotte. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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