Hardly earthshaking. Only, I voted for Obama even though I promised not to after his vote on FISA changes earlier this year. While I try to keep my word, occasionally some things are more important. Today was one of those days.
Today, I turned in my absentee ballot (by adding it to the huge pile of blue envelopes already collecting at the Registrar of Voters building in San Jose). Since I live in California, this obviously won’t decide the election. In fact, I don’t know anywhere where a single vote is likely to be decisive. Yes, it’s possible that a single vote in Ohio or Florida will decide it this year. Or one in Colorado, Virginia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Michigan, Arizona or, perhaps, Kansas, or even, theoretically, in California. It is also theoretically possible for hell to freeze over. I didn’t vote for Obama because I thought that my vote might get him elected.
I voted for him for a simple reason: he’s the best candidate for President. That really has nothing directly to do with his experience, because we all know that (1) you can’t be prepared to be President, it’s not like anything else and (2) whatever you thought or did in the past, as President you’d better be willing and able to do what’s best for the country based on what’s going down at the time. It doesn’t directly have to do with his opinions or positions, either, although I certainly like them better than those of McCain. Really, though, there are a lot of them I don’t think are as good as they could be. Single-payer healthcare comes to mind, and certainly his position on FISA (especially considering he’s supposed to be an “expert” on the Constitution).
It’s a little deeper than that, and it really is a character issue. It is something that we’ve all observed, I think, as Obama struggled to respond to the daily challenges of running in the most challenging campaign in the entire history of the planet. Obama listened to what the American people want. He put aside many preconceived notions of how the country should be governed, both his own and those of others.
And, in this way, he has not won the presidency, but rather we, the American people, have made him our President. Well, we “are making him our President”, now, present tense, but I don’t think there is any wiggle room left in the results. (Yeah, don’t get complacent. But, be confident. To the extent that the future is knowable, we all know what Tuesday evening will bring.)
It was a long process, and a lot of people had their hands in it. We changed Obama, who let himself be molded by us, from a candidate into a President. And, he did that without losing himself or giving up his core values. In many ways, this came about not by changing him, but rather by us learning more about what we really wanted and what we really needed for ourselves and for our country. Far from him wining votes, in this election, the votes came to him, along with money and time and creativity. This is a new, more participatory process than any we’ve seen before. By embracing that new process, Obama has become our President, as if coming from a forge and not the back bench.
Nor do I think this is a Democratic process, alone. In the way that Democrats were just as responsible for the election of George W. Bush as the Republicans (and others) were, so Republicans are just as responsible for the election of Obama this year. By taking action, by failing to take action, by simply being who we are as the people of this country we all have a part in the result. We are not creating a President of the red states or the blue states; we are creating a President of the United States of America. The result is an American result. And we will have an American President with an American mandate.
And yet, it is so wonderful and so satisfying to see someone who I believe will be a competent executive. I have such hopes for him. I hope that he will clean up the federal bureaucracy, dismissing the political hacks and installing smart, responsible people who will look beyond partisan politics to do what they know to be in the best interests of our country and the world. I sense that he is smart enough and informed enough to go out into that crowd of ruthlessly sharp rulers we see coming out of other countries to secure our needs, but at the same time build consensus to overcome the huge international problems we face. I hope that he will make good on his promises to give middle class interests back their rightful place in our government’s priorities. I think that he is brilliant enough to see where looking beyond zero-sum negotiations will leapfrog problems and bring prosperity to regions long neglected.
After the ill-fit of the Bush years it is wonderful and satisfying to see someone who fits comfortably into the presidency. I got that sense when I first saw him, four years ago at the Democratic National Convention, talking with candor and ease about all the things Americans were longing for. And again, in his recent speeches, Obama has learned to use the incantation that all Presidents use: “And may God bless the United States of America.” This is not a demand. This is not a plea. It is not a superstition. It is an acknowledgement that we are a special people with a special mission in the world, a noble mission that comes from the American spirit. We move the entire world forward with us when we are in touch with that great spirit. And, when we lose our way, it hurts everyone. There are equal parts request and promise in this saying. In that promise, it is time for us to do our part.