obligatory: yes, i voted. Spent an hour in line at my polling place. Which wasn’t too bad, compared to the last 2 major elections.
I kind of want to write before I hear any of the official results. As it is, it seems very likely that Obama will win, barring some hijinks/lawsuits/evil after the election is over. It all has a very epic feel to it. The last few days, even jaded people have been talking to me about this being a great moment in history. Obama is inspiring people in a way we haven’t seen in 40 years. (So much for all those people who told me his inspirational nature wouldn’t matter).
I don’t know what kind of president he will likely be. I have my concerns. But fuckit… given this job, I would have my concerns about anyone. This is one of those positions where no one is completely qualified. And it’s also not a job done alone. It will be interesting to see cabinet choices and such.
And political correctness aside, I will take a certain pride in seeing a black man stand up there representing our country. We talk a lot of high ideal shit in this world, only to have it be rendered meaningless by a bunch of rich, old, white men. Seeing the quintessential American success story stand up and represent us will be a nice change.
I don’t have a particular hate for McCain, although I get the feeling he was led down the wrong path in this election. He abandoned everything that made him McCain, and started blatantly appealing to the most extreme, unbalanced parts of his own party. The nomination of Palin is just downright insulting. I swore to myself 3 years ago that the massive trauma the republican party was going through was intentionally self inflicted. It looked to me like they were killing off the weakest sitting members of their party, in hopes of bringing in fresh blood to those positions. But if that’s at all true, their timeline is much longer than I expected.