One More Thought On Tonite

I first really got into politics in the 1988 race for the White House (I was a huge Dukakis supporter at the time). Dan Quayle's daughter actually attended my elementary school until after the election and I remember that really made politics personal for me. For the last 20 years I've followed politics closely and despite getting upset from time-to-time over the winners and losers in various races it's hard for me to feel anything other than pride in my country tonight. The United States is a country where we elect our leaders. We have months of debate, but in the end we have an orderly (non-violent) transition of power. It's easy to live in the US and take that for granted, but if one is a student of history (and I fancy myself one) then it's not hard to find a plethora of examples (many recent) where this isn't the case. We're all very lucky to live in a country where we have the ability to pick the leaders that we want in power (even when the "other guy" wins).

I was very pleased with both the concession speech of McCain and the victory speech by Obama. As I said earlier, I certainly hope Obama is successful. This country is in a tough spot right now, but I hope Obama is able to lead us in the right direction. Despite the fact that I didn't vote for him tonight, I'd love to be in a position to vote for him in '12 -- that would say he (and the rest of our government) did a number of things right between now and then.