Ask not what your country can do for you…Ask what you can do for your country – President John F. Kennedy
This quote speaks to what we need to do today as a country. We need to stop asking “what’s in it for me” and start asking “what can I do to help”. To find out how you can help, tell your story and what jobs are already available through the Obama/Biden administration, go to Change.gov.
An Emotional Victory
I am still misty-eyed about the Obama victory and so much more proud to be an American right now than I have ever been. I wrote the post right before this one last weekend and scheduled it because I knew I wouldn’t be able to write much the first few days after this election. I would either be in awe or depressed. Thank God, I’m in awe!
I thought an Obama victory would have me cheering, but it had me quietly and anxiously waiting for 270 electoral votes, and when the election was called for Obama, I started crying. I wasn’t alone. Rachel Maddow was obviously emotional, although she didn’t have tears running down her face on camera. I wouldn’t have been able to pull that off. Rev. Jesse Jackson, who was a very young civil rights leader back in the 1960’s, was openly weeping. He had tears running down his face. Oprah Winfrey was openly weeping. Eugene Robinson of NBC and Congressman John Lewis of Georgia were visibly moved by the outcome of this election.
The gravity of the moment was evident in the many scenes shown from around the country. On college campuses in the south to Grant Park in Chicago, people were cheering and crying or down on their knees crying and praying or just crying for joy and seemingly in some state of shock. I know I was pleasantly in shock for the first 24 hours.
Why Shock and Disbelief?
Even though I felt Obama would win, when he actually won, the reality had to sink in. I had to ask myself why.
Is it because the last two Presidential elections were so hard fought, or that in 2000 we had to wait a month to find out who would be President? Is it because of the narrow margin in 2004? Are we so cynical to believe that no matter how hard we tried, an Obama victory would be stolen even if it could be won? Is it because we never thought this day would come in our lifetime? Forty years since the civil rights movement is a long time chronologically, but it may not be sociologically.
I think it is a mix of all of the above. We had to see it to believe it. Now we are at the bottom of a mountain that could make this generation a great generation, maybe even greater than our Greatest Generation that came out of the Great Depression and World War II, if we climb that mountain successfully.
We Get Another Chance In The World
Foreign countries seemed to be watching our election returns as intensely as we were. When the race was called for Obama, Kenya, his father’s birthplace, declared November 6 a national holiday of celebration. Lots of Kenyan baby boys are being named Barack or Obama or both, and baby girls are being named Michelle, Sasha and Malia. It was reported tongue-in-cheek that one Kenyan baby was named Zamboni after Sarah Palin said she wanted to name a child of her own Zamboni but never did.
Many other people in many different countries on nearly all continents (except Antarctica, there just aren’t many people there) were partying, drinking and cheering Barack Obama’s name. Students at a school Obama attended overseas were also cheering.
The Iraqi leaders have even decided to negotiate a new agreement between our two countries to permit our troops to continue to operate in Iraq and withdraw on a reasonable timetable by December 31, 2011. They refused to negotiate with President Bush and didn’t trust a President McCain to keep any promises they made in any agreement. They say they trust President Obama to keep his promises.
The President of Iran congratulated Barack Obama on his victory. An Iranian leader hasn’t congratulated anyone since the fundamentalist Islamic take-over of the Iranian government in 1978. I’m not sure exactly what this means, but a thawing of relations with the world in general is a good thing. It’s easier to wage peace in a positive atmosphere with some good will on your side.
I’m so proud of us that we are finally at a place where a majority of the popular vote and a landslide electoral victory went to our first President who is African American. We have finally overcome a big hurdle. We still have racial hurdles to beat down, but a very big one was just obliterated.
It’s amazing as well that no single group can take credit for Barack Obama’s victory. He won a wide range of votes from very diverse groups of all races, backgrounds and ages. Far more people than ever before in the history of America voted in this election.
Equality for all is still not here yet
I know there is more work to do on racism in America because the states here in the deep south who voted for a segregationist candidate in 1968 (George Wallace) were bright red. Which states am I talking about? Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia. Tennessee, Kentucky and South Carolina also remained deep red, although their electoral votes didn’t go to Wallace in 1968.
Racism is dying slowly in the south. Florida, Virginia and North Carolina all went to Obama. They were narrow victories, but decisive ones.
Unfortunately, where we broke a big racial barrier, we put up more barriers to gay and lesbian civil rights. In California, Proposition 8 passed which denies gay and lesbian couples the right to marry, after they already had the right to do so. Similar measures passed in Arizona and Florida. In Arkansas, anyone not married may not adopt children. It is against Arkansas law for gays and lesbians to legally marry, so they cannot adopt children. Arkansas would rather leave children in foster care or orphanages instead of allowing them to go to loving, adopted homes with a same-gender couple or a single-parent home of anyone of any sexual orientation.
These travesties of justice make the Obama victory bitter-sweet for those of us who support equal rights for LGBT Americans as well as for all races, genders and ethnic groups. It shows we have a lot more work to do to educate more voters about the realities of LGBT civil rights, and that separate has never been equal and never will be equal.
Final Results Still Not In
Missouri’s votes are still being counted, but it is apparent that those electoral votes will likely go to John McCain. They are also still counting votes in Nebraska where electoral votes are split between candidates by districts and the Omaha district has not been called. That area would give Barack Obama one more electoral vote if it turns out to have a majority of votes for him.
As it stands now with Missouri still counting and Omaha undecided, Barack Obama has 364 electoral votes and John McCain has 173 electoral votes. It may take weeks for the final results to be known. But it didn’t take weeks to know the outcome of the Presidential election. NBC News called it along with CNN at 11 p.m. Eastern Time on November 4, 2008. Knowing who the President would be on election night hasn’t happened since 1996.
Some Senate and House races are still undecided and either going into runoff elections or vote recounts. It will be December before all races are settled.
Then there are all the shenanigans surrounding the Alaska election. Voter turnout was lower than in 2004 even though there were more registrations and more registered voters, not to mention their own governor, Sarah Palin, was on the Republican Presidential ticket. Winners won by extremely high margins compared to the polls. There is definitely something fishy going on up on America’s wild, frozen tundra and the election results up there need a serious legal looking into.
Alaska just re-elected the first convicted felon to the U.S. Senate. Senator Ted Stevens was recently convicted on 7 counts of felony corruption for violation of federal ethics laws. He failed to report tens of thousands of dollars of gifts he received from friends. He is the longest-serving Republican Senator in U.S. History. And I thought Louisiana politics could be corrupt…but Alaska has us beat and there isn’t even anybody named Long or Edwards involved.
The really sticky part of the Stevens story is it could be a path for Sarah Palin into the Senate. If Stevens resigns or is expelled from the Senate, a special election must be held within 90 days of that date to replace him. Sarah Palin would be well within her legal rights to run for Stevens’ Senate seat. She says she isn’t interested, but I get the feeling after being in the political limelight, she just isn’t thrilled about continuing to be the governor of a remote, under-populated, un-newsworthy state. They don’t have Nieman Marcus or Saks Fifth Avenue up there, nor anywhere to wear such duds.
Trends
The New York Times puts out a trend map after each Presidential election, and this year’s map compared to 2004 was moving very blue. It shows which direction voters are moving in all counties. Moving toward Democrats makes the map more blue while moving toward Republicans makes it more red. Only a small swoosh of not-so-dark red came from West Virginia down through all of Tennessee and southern parts of Kentucky, Northern Alabama, most of Arkansas and Oklahoma, Southwest Louisiana and the heavily white populated areas of Texas in Houston, Dallas and Austin. Arizona was somewhat pink, but I believe only because McCain is from Arizona. Otherwise it would probably have been more blue.
Only 22% of the entire nation’s counties voted more Republican than they did in 2004. That means 78% of all counties voted more Democratic this year. Even though Southwest Louisiana trended more Republican, a Cajun (Zydeco) band wrote a new song in broken French to celebrate the Obama victory. It may be a little red down there, but not completely. Don’t forget we probably have one of the largest mixed race populations in the country. Creole in its broadest sense means a blending of people and cultures of French and Spanish decent, French and African-Caribbean decent, French-Spanish-African decent, French-African decent, or French-Spanish-African-Caribbean decent, especially in South Louisiana. Barack Obama may occasionally call himself a mutt, but we in South Louisiana define it in human terms.
What About The Republican Party?
I wonder what the Republican party will do now that they are in shambles. I’m leaving it and so are many others. Most who are staying aren’t happy with the direction the party has gone in the last few decades. The party will either make the big mistake of tightening their base down to the Evangelicals, anti-abortionists, and draconian conservatives like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, or they will regroup and revamp the party back to what it was before these right-wing extremists got so much power. The Republican party used to be the party of fiscal discipline, respect for privacy on social issues, good education and moderate ideas that changed the country gradually.
But, when big changes are needed fast, we have had to rely on the Democrats to make them happen, at least from the 20th century on. Our Greatest Generation came when Democrats Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry Truman were our Presidents. The civil rights movement and Voting Rights Act came under Democrats John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. The first ideas and work on energy conservation and alternative energy came under Democrat Jimmy Carter. The longest period of peace and prosperity we experienced came under Democrat William Jefferson Clinton.
I hadn’t slept much since Tuesday, but last night I finally crashed. Friday and Saturday are my weekend days and I slept until noon today after getting up at 7 to feed my dogs and let them outside. I could see in the eyes of most everyone on MSNBC all day November 5 and some on November 6 that they hadn’t slept either. It’s not every election year that we make history and the meaning of our place in history warranted some lost sleep.
Let’s Get to Work
It’s time to stop partisanship and start working together toward the common goals of making America great again by solving our economic problems, effectively and responsibly ending the wars we’re involved in, providing health care to all, protecting our people and nation while being a free and open society, and once again being the leader of the free world.
Our new President needs our help. He can’t change everything that needs changing alone or just with Congress or just with Democrats. He needs everyone to make this country a better place. He needs all of us to leave a legacy that our children and grandchildren will look back on with pride and admiration. Hopefully, we will set the example for the hope and inspiration they may need to press on in their own time to continue making the world a better place.
Go to Change.gov to get started!
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