Congrats Barack!

I am a happy man today. In spite of our country's backward leaning populace, enough of us got out and voted for president elect Obama. Amazing.....

If you watched closely last night, you might have noticed a man who knew he was the next president of the United States and felt the full weight of that position. I believe I could see it in his eyes and the set of his jaw. Good for him. He seems a serious sort of person and these are indeed serious times.

That said, I hope he will retain or gain a sense of humor. He will need it in the white house. His own party is likely to be his worst enemy. Many of them, like me, will want revenge and will spend too much time on recrimination. I don't see our new president getting caught up in that.

The man is focused on the future, both near term and longer term. He will need that focus if he is to accomplish even a small portion of his agenda. Funds will be short and fought over viciously.

While all that is going on, our troops will still be engaged in two wars, our economy will remain in shambles, jobs will continue to flee our shores and the division in our population will remain intense. Those wondrous blowhards of the right will already be scheming and plotting to foil any and all proposals and initiatives.

Perhaps this time they'll see that more people want progress and action than they want political infighting. Maybe... Perhaps.... I hope.....

For this minute in time I will be happy, relieved, inspired and allow myself to congratulate my fellow citizens on getting out enough voters to unseat the republicans. Good Job Yall!!!!


Now for a little election post mortem.

Just over 119 million people cast their votes in this election. (according to CBS ) This is less than in 2004. If a get out the vote campaign was in fact effective, it was only so for Obama, and not for the country as a whole. From what I could tell from the sites I researched, we were at slightly less than 50% of eligible voters nation wide for the turnout. Historically that's not all that great.

Barack had 63 million and McCain had 56 million votes. So at least close to 120 million people cared enough to get out and vote. Good for them. The other 120 million were just plain too fucking lazy, too cynical, ignorant or otherwise incapable of doing their civic duty. Fuck them very much. People who don't or won't vote should have to go spend some time with Bush on his ranch in Crawford and help him clear brush for the next few years. OK, maybe that's a little a little harsh, but I am seriously unsympathetic about non-voters.

The House and Senate increased their democratic majorities, but not enough to be veto-proof in the senate. So what? I doubt the necessity of that anyway and believe the compromises will be made to get republicans on board when needed. A great many things will be done for which both parties will require some political cover and all politicians regardless of party know the CYA rule.

One senatorial race I found interesting and perhaps insightful into the new majority psyche was the contest in Minnesota. Al Franken is currently asking for a recall after losing by 800 votes. Had his campaign been less nasty, he might have been a full beneficiary of Obama's coattails and won handily. Instead, the third party candidate syphoned off 15 percent of the vote. This should be a lesson to all in 2010. Keep it clean, make your point, have facts to back it up and be positive about what you can do. Who knows who the eventual winner will be, but even if Franken wins, he'd better get on board the Obama consensus train and off the post-Clinton attack express.

I know this cause I've been riding the damn thing for 8 years. I am turning in my ticket and moving on with my life as well.

If Obama is as smart as I think he is, he will not allow his party to spend too much time investigating BushCo. We all know they were both corrupt and inept. Enough said. We need to move on.

If someone as stuck in the 60's, as Viet Nam centric, as vindictive and vengeful as I am, can let go, then the rest of you ought to be able to as well. I hope.....

The especially goes for Pelosi and Reid. Please...play nice and accomplish something, OK?

I was impressed to see that Obama's choice for chief of staff was a hardass. That's a good first step. Let's hope he keeps choosing the right people with the right stuff.

My congrats to all my blog friends who worked on the Obama campaign and all that got out and voted. GREAT JOB.

RT