The Election Effect

I’m a no apologies Democrat. It’s in my blood. My great-grandfather voted party line his entire life and at age 93 my grandmother does the same. It might have skipped a generation, but I continue the tradition. I don’t just vote party line. A few key issues drive my vote. They just happen to be perfectly correlated with party affiliation.

I woke early on November 4 and waited 1.25 hours with Duckie (i.e., son #2) to vote. After pushing the button on the touch screen at the voting booth I stood for a moment and got teary. I realized how emotionally attached I was to the outcome of this election.

I really do want the country to change. I’m smart enough to realize that life isn’t going to be instantly different come January 20, but for me a few concerns will dissipate. I won’t worry about drilling for oil in places we should be protecting or ignoring strong scientific evidence that the climate is adversely affecting our world or using the tax system to line the pockets of those who already own more than my definition of a “fair share.”

On November 5^th when I saw the decisive outcome of the election I cried and immediately thought of my kids. They will grow up in a more integrated world than their parents. A Black man is President and this will not be remarkable to them as they become older. It’s likely that by the time they are of voting age we won’t have to say “a Black man is President.” There’s probably little, if any reference to the skin

color or gender of the previous 43 Presidents. Hopefully, such references to the 44^th President will just be a blip in the historical books.

We are a White middle-class, educated family. My kids will grow up with a roof over their heads, food on the table, access to education, a well apportioned house, credit when they need it, job opportunities, etc. They’ll have plenty of role models that look like them. That doesn’t excite me; it makes me cringe. The fact that a role model might be of a different race does excite me. But the beauty of the situation is that it isn’t at all about race. More important, to me, is that I want a smart person to be President.

I’m pretty well educated, but smart enough to know that I’m no genius. I can’t lead our country. I can hold my own in a conversation about economics, toddler sleep habits, skiing, and m-and-m pancakes, but I can’t figure out what to do about Iraq, the economy, or climate change. We need someone smart to do that. The President-elect is really smart. Sure, he’s a bit professorial. But isn’t that what we want? I’ve spent drunken nights in bars. I vaguely (only because my memory is fuzzy) know what it’s like. That’s not what we want leading our country. We want the book worm who has been holed up in the library all weekend. The world is complicated. We need a smart person to lead the country.

So, as me move toward a new administration I find myself feeling a sense of hope and excitement for the future my kids will experience. Race was less of an issue for my generation than it was for my parents, and certainly for my grandparents. With this election I see giant strides towards making it even less of an issue for my kids, and that makes me excited.

For more acerbic, as well as mundane musings visit Kelly at www.unanchoredthoughts.blogspot.com