Election Eve

Every presidential election in America is important. To quote a former president, that statement is self evident. And though each one is always the most important election on the planet, tomorrow's rises above the usual quadrennial significance.

One, simply marking the end of the last eight years is huge. After running as the 'compassionate conservative' ticket, the Bush-Cheney administration governed at times like incompetents in way over their heads - the war in Iraq, Katrina, the lack of oversight of Wall Street, tax cuts for the wealthy while fighting two wars and thus running up huge deficits - and at other times like paranoid Nixonian rogues - misleading the public about weapons of mass destruction, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo. The combination adds up to eight years of failure and shame, and America's standing in the world at it's lowest. To think that on September 12, 2001 the entire world stood with us as the west rallied against dangerous religious extremism and violence. All of that is gone thanks to the boobs in the White House.

Two, this election could mark the evolution of the United States from a democracy to a participatory democracy. For liberals, actually for any American, that is a tremendous development. Having so many first-time voters vote for a winning candidate will make them lifelong voters. But I also think this election, and the election of someone like Barack Obama, will make people political not just repeat voters. I hope this leads to more people following current events, reading newspapers, writing letters to the editor, volunteering with civic organizations - a rejuvenation of our civic life. That's what a message of hope, and a message than wins elections, can do.

Far too many Americans put down politics, but to me politics is the best thing about America. And not voting is simply un-American. The best thing about America is we aren't like the Greeks or Chinese, bound together by blood or thousands of years of history and tradition. America reinvents itself too often to be rooted in old world concepts like blood or place or family. Instead, the United States is defined by something vastly superior: an ideal and a politics exemplified by elections and Congress and the separation of powers and a free press and the Bill of Rights. Our ideals make us Americans, and it has always bothered me when one of my fellow citizens puts down politics. Politics makes us who we are more than any other facet of American life.

Obama is making politics - and American ideals - cool again for the first time in my lifetime, certainly for the first time since John Kennedy was president. He keeps drawing huge crowds in Florida, Ohio, and North Carolina; conversely, McCain and Palin, with a more fearful and cynical and less uplifting message, have played to some small crowds in the last few days.

And three, there is Obama himself. For me, Obama is significant on two levels. The first one is obvious; electing an African-American is incredible and something frankly to be proud of. What a great leap forward for America and the American electorate. But even more important than his blackness - yes, he's black enough - is the fact that Obama's election reinvigorates one of the best American dreams of them all: the fact - FACT - that truly anyone can grow up to be President of the United States. That simple fact speaks volumes about our nation. Not to sound to corny and immigrantee, but only in American can someone like Obama - and as Chris Rock has pointed out, you can't elect a blacker name than Barack Obama - be elected President. A mixed-race child of Kansan and Kenyan parents, raised in Hawaii - can any story be more everyman American, and better illustrate America reinventing itself?

Again, we are a nation not united by blood or ethnicity but by ideals, ideals that like our nation can be reinvented or rejuvenated every four years.

That is, every four years if the right guy wins. Hopefully that will happen tomorrow on a very historic election day for our nation (and hopefully, it won't always be guys).

A little more blather

• Obama has a great story, but most of our presidents since Kennedy have had similar backgrounds. Did you know, for instance, that Lyndon Johnson's father was from Uganda? Ok, that's not true. Johnson was from a rural part of Texas and graduated from South West Texas State and initially was a teacher; Jimmy Carter, a peanut farmer from southwest Georgia (southwest Georgia is east of the middle of nowhere); Bill Clinton lived the lyrics of a country song, raised in Arkansas by a mama married multiple times to an array of shady men, and a man who never knew his daddy. Even the Republicans not 'born with a silver foot in his mouth' have humble origins: Nixon was from rural California, and Reagan went west from Illinois in the quintessential quest to remake himself and start all over.
• Earlier in this blog I blathered about participatory democracy. That will be very significant for African-Americans, especially in the south, a young people. In the south, massive turnout rewarded with victory could finally make the south a progressive region, with the long-awaited alliance of blacks (25 to 30% of the vote), white liberals (10-15%, mainly in cities, gay parts of town, and college towns), and ethnics (Jews, Greeks, but most of all Hispanics) making states like North Carolina and Georgia truly bipartisan and in play every election from here on out.
• One last defense of politics. If folks want to put down something, how about attacking economics or fear or unfettered free trade, or greed? To me, those motivations are responsible for the worst things American has done in the past: the slave trade, stealing the land of Native Americans, interning Japanese-Americans, etc. Politics has it's share of problems, but it wasn't politics than produced those atrocities.
• Finally, I think Obama will finish with an astounding 353 electoral votes. In the end, though my head says not to, I'm giving Obama both my home states of North Carolina and Florida. Add those two to the states Kerry carried, plus Obama's strength in expanding the map in Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada, then Ohio (a state that went very D in 2006 where the economy will carry the day for Obama) and you get to a almost-landslide like 353 electoral votes, with probably 53 percent of the popular votes, for a brutha' named Barack Obama. Astounding, and excellent.