In which I try to give a little historical perspective to where we are at this time in American history.
When one ponders current polling results for the upcoming presidential election, it gives one pause to consider how surly we have become not "ONE" American as Senator Obama is fond of saying, but truly a divided America. Consider if you will, that Obama leads by over twenty points in states like California, Massachusetts and New York while trailing by similar amounts in Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas. This does not represent a small difference in the way these different states, and the regions they occupy, view our country and it's future.
As surly as an overwhelming majority of residents of the Pacific coast and the North Atlantic regions regard the current President and his policies to be fundamentally wrong, and demand a new direction for our country, residents of the Inter-mountain West and the Deep South see no apparent flaws in the philosophical positions of the Republican Party. I might add that you do not hear anyone saying in this election that there is little difference between the candidates and their parties. It is evident to even the most casual observer that we are witnessing a partisan divide not last seen since just prior to the Civil War.
The campaign positioning of the Republican's in these last days of the election have been anything but conciliatory in tone, and post election attempts at "lets all come together" rhetoric will sound more than usually hollow under the circumstances. Can we really expect the strong right wing views of a majority of the Republican party to engage in any sort of "middle way" reasoning with the Democrats? Can we really expect the Democrats and their emerging new majority to choose any path but a scorched earth destruction of an intransigent Republican minority?
I know that this diary will not be popular, coming as it does so close to the election, and at a time when we so badly need to come together. I am truly hopeful that Barack Obama can be the transformational figure that we so badly need to really become one country again, without it I fear the problems we face will be insurmountable and we will dissolve into a situation where we are engaged in a "Cold Civil War" with ourselves, one in which we all will lose.
By election day I will have worked over 100 hours for the Obama Campaign recruiting over 50 volunteers to put in something like 400 hours of volunteer time. I am not a religious man, but if I were I would think our current period in history to be one where our country truly needs praying for.