This is my first diary post. I'm a dual citizen of Canada and the U.S., currently living in Toronto.
My vote used to be registered for New York, but now it gets counted in Florida since the folks have moved there. It's incredibly moving to feel like my vote really counts for something now that it's registered in a swing state.
It is clear now after this last debate that moderates and many Independent voters are sticking with the Democrats. Come January, it looks rather certain that we'll control all three chambers of gov't, with roughly a 100 seat lead in the House, and possibly a shot at the magic number of 60 in the Senate, although I'm more inclined to believe we'll fall just a seat or two short of that mark. The idea of winning a shot at absolute power after suffering from 3 very disappointing defeats earlier in the decade is worth celebrating, but I want to impress on liberals everywhere that with this victory also comes a tremendous responsibility.
The easiest thing we could do is to get so drunk in our celebration that we stumble unwittingly into the same traps that the other side fell into. We know the frustration of being the loyal opposition in a time when the party in power simply ignored us. We need to show that we can learn the valuable lessons the other side did not by actually reaching out early on, offering olive branches and a real tone of compromise.
The very same swing voters who gave their trust to George Bush twice ran away precisely because they were ignored by his administration. It is not enough to earn the trust of the many voters in the middle only to run to the extremes of one's party once in power. A party must continue to earn this trust while governing.
Barack Obama is going to receive a clear mandate to end the war in Iraq responsibly and to then pivot and deal with a strategy on Afghanistan. Meanwhile, he'll be facing an economic and budgetary crisis at home. The undercurrent of truth that runs underneath the stump speeches is that we need to tighten our belts and begin to get our books in order again. It'll be no easy task, but I hope that Barack can give a little right away and challenge the congress to cut spending and to create a real plan to reduce spending wherever we can in order to help both the budget and to pay for a strong healthcare initiative. Showing restraint and sticking with it will signal to moderate and intellectual conservatives that their vote was not exploited simply for victory, and to those who swung a little but decided to stay with McCain, that we aren't entirely deaf to their concerns.
We know the line about absolute power. And in recent years we've lived it. Last night's debate confirms and cements for all of us that Obama has the remarkable ability to remain levelheaded. Cool but also engaged. He's very well respected by Chuck Hagel, Dick Luger as well as many conservative pundits who've found his character to have been truly revealed over the crisis these last few weeks. If Obama's not afraid to make friends with some who disagree with him on many things in order to search for the ways they might agree on some things, and to at least keep the lines open, than it ought to be something we should all remember to practice, once the hangover subsides at some point on November 5th or 6th, or at least by that following weekend.