Election Day.... Beyond Proud (beware: long post)

I love Election Day! Not because I just want my guy to win, but because it's the most incredible democratic process in the world. I think in a world of dictators and political genocide, we have to stand back and be ever grateful that we have the privilege to have a say in who will lead and represent us in the future as well as how our country will function and progress. I don't care who you vote for... as long as you do vote and know why you're voting the way you are. I respect that our country and its citizens do not share the same opinions... isn't that what it's all about? I think that's why I love Election Day- for one day we show the world that a nation can exist who not only allows its people to speak their opinions but lets/encourages them to cast a ballot that helps make the ultimate decisions necessary to determine our nation's future direction.

I've never really used this blog as a platform, so forgive me for just letting it "all hang out" this one time....skip over to the cute pics of the munchkin if you've had enough. (=

In my (albeit humble) opinion, this was one of the most fundamental and transformational elections this country has seen. We need change... real change, not just some political rhetoric that makes a good sound bite. We are facing ever present dangers world-wide, new forms and faces of terrorism knocking on our door daily, an incredibly grave economic crisis leaving families without a hope for the future or a paycheck for the now, and a scary and heartbreaking war (there's not much I want to say on that except I respect the hell out of and thank God for those that stand up and serve on our behalf). As you can tell from the completely obnoxious paraphernalia I cloaked my child in yesterday, I cast my vote for the Obama- Biden ticket. I did so whole-heartedly and with great pride. I respect Senator McCain tremendously (sorry, Palin scares the crap out of me), but the choice was pretty clear for me from the beginning. A few of my friends are shocked that I'm a Democrat (can someone channel political conservatism?), and my poor dad wants to know where he went wrong. (= They always make me explain WHY? Every voter has their pressure points and reasons for believing one candidate is better for them over another... there is no perfect choice, just an individual "better" choice. For ex, President Elect Obama's tax plans will likely hurt my family (this is Mark's one and only pressure point, don't blame him), but there were other things more important to me. I'll just highlight a few of the reasons I voted for the Obama-Biden ticket:

(1) Obama offers a better financial outlook for the country. I think that Obama is essentially a cautious person, and the campaign has shown him to be exceptionally disciplined. I think he is more likely to be like Clinton, who successfully limited the growth in government spending, than like George W. Bush, who did not. John McCain might be as frugal, but he also seems driven to impose further tax cuts, which would drive the deficit up and create even greater income inequality.

(2) Obama offers a better hope to repair our relations with the rest of the world. We have some work to do on that front, and Obama offers a cleaner break from the Bush Administration that created many of our problems. A big strike against McCain on this count, for me, is that someday, sometime, Sarah Palin could become the president and be in charge of our relations with the rest of the world. Excuse me while a scream of terror slips from my lips. Sorry, excuse me.

(3) Obama offers the hope of positive changes in criminal law. Because in a former life, I was an attorney and now have a brother who serves as a DA, I care deeply about criminal law, and to me this is a big issue. Obama is much more likely to allow and even promote reforms in the areas of sentencing and prosecutorial priorities. McCain has shown no interest in this area, other than the vague promise to be "tough on crime."

(4) And finally....the major hot button for me.... Obama will help, by way of court nominations and appointments, to maintain laws upholding the woman's right to choose. I am not FOR abortion (who is?), but FOR a woman's right to govern and make choices concerning her own body. There are many reasons for my strict stance on this issue. There are just too many scenarios that would be heartbreaking should this option be eliminated. But most of all, the outlawing of abortions would not make abortions less common, it would just make them less SAFE. We'd see secret slaughterhouses pop up all over our nation leaving scared 15-year-old pregnant girls permanently maimed or dead. This is a tragic issue and one with no happy ending, but it's a moral issue. One that needs to be addressed and advocated in our homes and our churches, not from judicial benches.

ON TO A LIGHTER ISSUE, I've done the same thing for the last 3 presidential elections. I set up shop in front of the tv, equipped with my 2 national maps (1 with the designated electoral votes allotted each state that I can keep referring back to and 1 I can mark off as they're called... this is also my tab sheet). Mark thought this was ridiculous (although he kept coming in and looking over my shoulder at counts). I won't lie- the moment they called Penn and a little bit later Ohio, I was out of control!

And finally, once they called the race in favor of Obama, I sat simply in awe on our couch. Tears rolling down my face. So proud to be an American. Senator Barack Obama will be sworn in as the 44th President of the United States in January. To get there, he had to defeat a remarkable man, Sen. John McCain. Some of my best friends (and my hubby) supported McCain, and for the right reasons-- because they believed in the good and true principles that McCain expressed, and believed, correctly, that he had the experience and judgment to be a strong president. I watched McCain reverently as he respectfully spoke of his defeat and applauded Obama (what a class act). And then, as I watched the future First Family take the stage, I was struck by a sense of incredible pride and excitement for our country. It is a testament to all of us that anything truly is possible in the land of the free. It is a victory for the American people, white and black, Republican and Democrat. A black man will be president of the United States, and it is not because he is black-- it is because of the "content of his character," as another man standing on the steps of the Lincoln Monument forty-five years ago said to a crowd who may have considered it a ridiculous dream. Thanks be to God that that dream has now come to fruition.