As I am sure that most of you know by now,Barack Obama is the
new President of the United States.
Obama hammered John McCain in both the Electoral College (349-147) and by five points in the popular vote (52-47) and never seemed to be seriously threatened by the Republican Senator from Arizona.
Barack Obama will bring several things to the Oval Office that could help this country through its struggles,but he is far from a sure thing.
When one votes for change,you never know whether the fresh face is any better than the current office holder.
Obama certainly will help with the image of the United States around the world as someone that is different from the norm and the American people look good around the globe as well today for breaking away from the past and doing something different.
I like to think that Obama's tax plan that seems to scare so many will be what he says-a return to the tax rates under Bill Clinton.
This country did pretty nicely under Bill Clinton and the tax rates were far from abusive.
I also hope that with a Democratic Congress that legitimate progress towards a health care system is finally made.
It is ridiculous that so many people work hard and cannot afford health insurance in the most prosperous country in the world.
I do not feel that helping hard working families to not go bankrupt in case of health problems is socialistic-it just is caring about the citizens of our country and if some upper class people disagree,then I am sure they would not mind trading places with some of the less fortunate giving their life a try.
I don't feel that a health care system should be mandatory,just offered to everyone as an option.
After all,the real problem with health care is that people cannot afford it.
I hope that Obama is able to be a less confrontational leader (Like that will be hard to do) than George Bush.
This will help the United States to be looked at as a big brother instead of a bully and help the USA to be looked at as we truly are,not as others have seen us as over the last eight years.
I have major questions about our new President.
He is far from experienced and his less than one term in the Senate was far from exceptional.
He seems intelligent,but not exceptionally so.
He gives a great speech,but seems borderline clumsy when answering questions and he will have show the grit and toughness that so many question that he has.
He can go a long way to unify things by putting people from all ends of the spectrum in cabinet and advisory positions and that will show Republicans that you can govern all people without sticking fingers in the opponents eye in the fashion that George Bush and Dick Cheney seemed to delight in doing.
We have percentages of people on both sides that will be ready to praise Obama for reasons that have little to do with performance and others that will give him no credit no matter how successful his term will be.
We need to be open minded and give him a chance,but not be so filled with sunshine that we don't criticize when needed.
There are people on the left that will be disappointed before he even enters office and they need to understand that successful Presidents govern from Center/Left,not pure left.
The squad from the right are disappointed that the USA seems to be drifting to more of a liberal run after a 28 year run of Center/Right and that the results of the election means a total change in the way of life that we all enjoy and of course that is not true.
Summing things up,Congratulations to the Obama/Biden Campaign for a truly historic win and lets not be too harsh to throw John McCain in the mud.
I thought McCain's concession speech was very gracious and perhaps had he done more of the talking for the entire campaign in the style that he showed in the last few days things could have different......
Talkin GOP
Besides having to run in the worst time to run as a Republican in 32 years,McCain still could have won this election.
But a few miscues ended any chances.
The first was having to drift to the right to earn the nomination.
McCain is a centrist Republican at his core and having to drift over,not only hurt him badly in looking like Bush redux but it also made him uncomfortable in having to run as someone that he really wasn't.
This would be the local equivalent of me running for the Congressional Seat of Roscoe Bartlett and having pretend that I was a Baltimore Raven fan.
Whether I did it or not,I am going to be uncomfortable doing it and it will show through.
The second was the pick of Sarah Palin.
I have detailed my issues with Palin before here,but there can be no doubt that no matter her crowd numbers and her hard core followers aside,she was the death blow to any comeback hopes.
Her embarrassing interviews,lack of grasp of anything involving the job,the Tina Fey impersonations,the hokey folksiness in her debate and her pounding of issues that no one cared about (Bill Ayers,Socialism etc) all added up to this-she turned on the 20% of the country that is hardcore right wing,but was unable to land one moderate person to their case.
When 59% of the country has an unfavorable opinion of you and your qualifications for the job,your team is in big trouble.
Palin was never the type of candidate that was going to land the Hillary Clinton vote and selecting a clearly unprepared running mate came across as not only pandering to that block but patronizing as well.
Picking Palin took the one issue that McCain had on Obama-Experience and superior preparation for the job and tossed it off the table.
The final shot was beyond McCain's control.
Just as the race had tightened,the financial crunch hit.
When that hit,no Republican was going to be able to survive that,
That was just one final reminder of the misery of eight years under GOP rule and crunched any chance of the comeback.
The Democrats have what they wanted-control of both houses and the Presidency.
Let us hope they can do the right things for the right reasons and turn the country around and not use this opportunity for political payback......
Well,except for one man.
Use this opportunity to slap Joe Lieberman around.
His behavior was reprehensible for a true Democrat and put him where he belongs-on the low end of the totem pole with the worst committee assignments that you can give.
Joe,you wanted to be with the Republicans,so here is your wish-Enjoy!
Photo Credit
Obama/Biden:Scott Olsen:Getty Images
