Thoughts on the first Thursday in November

Obama won. Should we all be proud as Americans? Dude, every time there is a smooth and peaceful transition of power it should make you proud to be an American. That's what makes America great!

'Change' doesn't really get me all jazzed up as a cultural buzzword. Its worth noting that at least half of the elections in American history were run on 'change', there's nothing older than change in American politics. Liberals in general want to use the government as a tool for social change but I think that's just a poor model: our founding fathers left us with a system intentionally designed to move slowly and to be above anyone's control. Change comes from society itself, not government, so I'm not sure exactly what it is Prez-Elect plans to do or even what his acolytes want him to do. To some the mere election of a black man is a bold step forward, but to me its just a historical inevitability that I happened to witness, somehow I'm not so blown away. I've seen 2 space shuttles go down in flames, the Berlin Wall get raized and the Red Sox win the World Series, I've had a busy life on that level. A 'black president' is just so much symbolism that doesn't illuminate anything to me. Barak Obama is a real person, not a symbol, and he may well make a fine president. I hope he does.

I don't think America's racial problems will be in any way changed by an Obama administration and as I blogged previously, any worthwhile social change will come from Mrs. Obama and the little girls, not the political paterfamilias. And to that end I'll go ahead and predict that Michelle Obama will be staggeringly popular--more even than Laura Bush, who was pretty staggeringly popular herself--and that she'd do well to simply ignore the right wing media. The left-y media will fawn over her for years to come and the Fox News crowd ain't ever gonna be swayed so I see little reason to even acknowledge them. I don't see her like Hillary, with her own political ambitions, rather I see her more like Eleanor Roosevelt: an impassioned, intelligent woman who will use her celebrity to speak out on causes for rest of her life. (Weird shift here) I never thought JFK Jr would run for office, I think he would've been content to run his magazine and be a political bigwig on the media side rather than actually getting in the meat grinder of politics. Similarly Michelle Obama will be a beloved first lady for the rest of her life now and that's probably way more useful for social change that being a senator from Illinois or trying to bigfoot the Democratic party.

Barak, on the other hand, will be fighting the left wing media throughout his administration. They will hold his feet to the fire in a way that he won't particularly much appreciate since he's convinced he got to this office solely on his own merits and without sucking up to his press corps. The right wing media will of course never warm to Obama and they'll gladly give succor to Congressional Dems who find themselves at loggerheads with the executive, but realistically I don't think they'll be that influential on him. Again, the Fox News crowd ain't ever gonna be swayed, so Obama needn't spend too much time trying to win them over (in an abstract sense, that is, here and there courting the right will present itself as politically effective).

I don't care about race. I never did. Skin tones in human beings range from very light to very dark and none of them are adequate representations of what any given individual may be like. I've met plenty of black people that I liked and plenty I didn't; I've known way more white people that I didn't like than all the other races combined I would suppose. I've never felt compelled to like or dislike anybody based on race (or gender, nationality, religion, etc.). None of those things make you good or bad, the conditions you react to and the choices you make are what you are and black people and white people are just as likely to make good choices as bad ones.

That said, I did have one racial moment during this campaign. One. While watching Obama give his coronation speech at the Dem convention, I made a kooky observation: his wife is black, he married a black woman. Barak Obama had a white mother, was largely raised by his white family, spent most of his time in white neighborhoods, white schools, surrounded by white chums and colleagues. The bulk of his self-identity, other than the face staring back at him in the mirror, would've been white. But he fell in love, courted and married a black woman. At that particularly moment that struck me as an odd choice, perhaps a brave choice or a cynical one, but an unpredictable one nevertheless. I don't blame the guy, I think she's pretty hot and I'm sure she's smart, kind and lovable in the way we all can be. The observation isn't 'racial' so much as 'sociological', it seems like he would've married a white woman. That's it, for all the talk or subtext about race, it never really much occurred to me that Barak Obama was anything more than a politician running for president.

Now he's president. Hey, I'm just glad the election's over! Its not an easy world he finds himself in. The economy, despite what politicians continually try to make us believe, isn't really controlled by the government. Oh, it has its sway here and there but for the most part its you and me getting up and going to work every day that shapes the economy into what it is. Will Obama being in the Oval Office make us all happier, more productive citizens? It might, hard to quantify but its not without its influence. Will his black skin save us from disaster? No. Will his black skin bring ruin to the Republic? No. His 'blackness' is now officially over, he's got to govern the same way the 43 white dudes before him did. (And he better keep his eye on Vladimir Putin...)

As for 'change', well I just finished reading The Last Hurrah by Edwin O'Connor, a marvelous political novel about an old timey mayor making one last bid for re-election. (spoiler alert) In the end he's bested by unknown upstart whose single finest moment was a TV appearance with his wife and kids and a dog they rented for the occasion (because their real dog was considered much too un-lovable). As the lighter side of the news reports on the Obama family shopping around for a new lovable pooch to join them in the White House, I can't help thinking that all this 'change' reminds me of a novel written 50 years ago.