It's Over: The End of the Beginning

Barring some last minute, radical development like Osama bin Laden turning state's evidence against Whitey Bulger, Barack Obama will be the President-elect by nightfall on the Left Coast.

Truth be told, I voted for him. It wasn't a hold-your-nose vote either. I really think he's the better choice. I just wish I had confidence in his ability to control other members of his party. Or for that matter, the other party, too.

Obama's election could mean that meaningful, constructive changes could occur. Change is critically needed. President Reagan declared, "Morning in America" when he was elected. I hope Obama triggers a similar re-awakening.

We've just come through almost two decades of decadence. No matter how times Bill Clinton said that he "feels our pain", his self-absorption was his lasting legacy. His behavior either mirrored or kick-started a divisive, acquisitive, me-absorbed era. Dot-coms anyone? It continued with eight years of lurching from crisis to crisis, including a mistaken war (still looking for WMDs), horrible criminality (911), ridiculous crisis management ("Heckofa job, Brownie").

We've been through periods of societal frustration / stagnation before. Almost immediately after Richard Nixon's election in '72, the country became aware of the Watergate scandal and we began a slide ("malaise") that lasted through the Jimmy Carter presidency. We didn't really emerge - despite Ford's earlier assurances that our "long national nightmare is over" - until Ronald Reagan figured out a way to re-awaken the "silent majority" that Carter had dismissed as esssentially unreachable.

I fully expect that Barack Obama will bring hope to the country. In turn, my hope is that he rides his popularity to make lasting, fundamental changes.