Obama-nation
On the morning of election day, my stomach is rumbling. Not because I am hungry to eat, but because I--and just about everyone I know--is desperately hungry for change. After 8 endless years under the worst president and vice-president--(Spiro Agnew included--of my lifetime, I'm craving new leadership. I believe that Obama and Biden can provide what we/I need. Hell, he can hardly do worse.
Obama, like Bill Clinton, represents achievement based on merit, on ability, on intelligence. George W Bush represented, to me, the worst of America--nepotism, family connections, affirmative action for rich white men. Who honestly believe that GW would have come within sniffing distance of the White House, if he'd been born into an average American family, much less a poor one?
More than anything, I want to believe that my native state of Ohio will finally side with someone who could potentially benefit this country. Growing up there in the 1960's, I heard that Ohio was the "Mother of Presidents," basically tied with Virginia as the birthplace or residence of our supreme leaders. But later, I came to think of the Buckeye State as the "Mother of Bad Presidents," since we had birthed many corrupt and inept presidents--i.e. Harding and Grant,along with various mediocrities like Taft. Then there was William Henry Harrison, who was from (but not born in) Ohio, and who lasted all of one month before he caught pneumonia, and two who fell under assassins' bullets--James Garfield and William McKinley.
Lately, Ohio has helped to seal our nation's fate by sending GW Bush to Washington in both 2000 and 2004. In '04, the state vote was sealed by the machinations of Kenneth Blackwell, who was both Ohio Secretary of State and Bush's campaign co-chair. (A major conflict of interest).
Today, I want to hope that Ohio, and the nation as a whole, can finally begin to put the Bush years behind us and elect a leader who calls upon our better nature, rather than our xenophobia, our fear of the other, our narrow-mindedness. Will it happen?
I'm hoping that we'll know by midnight tonight, and that I'll wake up tomorrow in a new era of possibility, in which George W Bush is almost irrelevant, a footnote of history whom many of us are anxious to forget--like a nightmare that fades in the light of morning.
Obama, like Bill Clinton, represents achievement based on merit, on ability, on intelligence. George W Bush represented, to me, the worst of America--nepotism, family connections, affirmative action for rich white men. Who honestly believe that GW would have come within sniffing distance of the White House, if he'd been born into an average American family, much less a poor one?
More than anything, I want to believe that my native state of Ohio will finally side with someone who could potentially benefit this country. Growing up there in the 1960's, I heard that Ohio was the "Mother of Presidents," basically tied with Virginia as the birthplace or residence of our supreme leaders. But later, I came to think of the Buckeye State as the "Mother of Bad Presidents," since we had birthed many corrupt and inept presidents--i.e. Harding and Grant,along with various mediocrities like Taft. Then there was William Henry Harrison, who was from (but not born in) Ohio, and who lasted all of one month before he caught pneumonia, and two who fell under assassins' bullets--James Garfield and William McKinley.
Lately, Ohio has helped to seal our nation's fate by sending GW Bush to Washington in both 2000 and 2004. In '04, the state vote was sealed by the machinations of Kenneth Blackwell, who was both Ohio Secretary of State and Bush's campaign co-chair. (A major conflict of interest).
Today, I want to hope that Ohio, and the nation as a whole, can finally begin to put the Bush years behind us and elect a leader who calls upon our better nature, rather than our xenophobia, our fear of the other, our narrow-mindedness. Will it happen?
I'm hoping that we'll know by midnight tonight, and that I'll wake up tomorrow in a new era of possibility, in which George W Bush is almost irrelevant, a footnote of history whom many of us are anxious to forget--like a nightmare that fades in the light of morning.
posted by Judah1 at 8:35 AM
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