Four years ago I wrote the following on Hit Coffee. My prediction going into election day was that the race would be slightly closer than the polls suggested. However, when I woke up on election day I changed my mind and determined that it would be the landslide everyone had been waiting for*. With the election’s ultimate result already determined, and with more than a little apprehension about the presumptive winner, I had no real reason to watch other than (a) that’s what I do on election day and (b) the sense that it was history in the making.
I didn’t expect to see Jesse Jackson with tears of joy in his eyes. I didn’t expect to be happy for Jesse Jackson**. But there it was. A history not just in the vague sense, but in a way that was real in a way that I had never fully appreciated until I saw what I can only describe as elated disbelief. They knew as well as I did that this was what was going to happen. But it was, I can only imagine, so much different to actually watch it happen. He’d won. He’d won an overwhelming victory. Though Hit Coffee was at the time a no-politics zone, I nonetheless penned the following post
Undone
When I was in high school, Mr. Hiller, my government teacher, asked every girl in the class to stand up.
Then he asked every student who was not white and whose parents weren’t white to stand up. After some looking at one another, most did.
He then asked everybody whose last name ends in a vowel other than “e” to stand up. They did so.
Then he said requested that everyone in the class that is not a protestant to stand up. The couple Jewish kids in the class and a Catholic or two stood up. It was when he said that anyone that had just stood up on the basis that they’re Catholic can sit down if their parents are millionaires that I knew what he was getting at.
Then, to the three-quarters of the class standing up, he said, “You will never be president when you grow up.”
Barack Obama has been a better president than I thought he would be. If I had it to do over again, I would have voted for him (owing at least in part to McCain’s temperament). I’m not voting for him this time around, either, but mostly because I am not in a competitive state, the Republicans nominated someone I find tolerable, and the Libertarians nominated someone I can actually support.
My hope when he was elected in the first place is that I would regret not having voted for him. Mission accomplished. My hope is that in his second term – assuming everything goes as expected – is that he does such a bang-up job that I have a similar regret in four years time.
* – This frequently happens. I go to sleep the night before election day thinking one thing and wake up with a feeling that I was wrong. Sometimes the shift is to the Republican (2004) and sometimes to the Democrat (2000, 2008). We’ll see if that happens again this year.
** – You might be thinking “Woah boy, a white guy with a chip on his shoulder about Jesse Jackson.” I do have a chip on my shoulder about Jesse Jackson, but in the sense that he is a liberal black politician. I don’t have a comparable chip with regard to Al Sharpton, for example. There’s a story behind this that I may write about in the future.
I was a very reluctant Obama voter in 2008. At the time, I saw the groundswell of support for him (I live in Chicago) to be disturbing, a sort of personal idolatry and acceptance of might makes right mentality (“we” outnumber “them,” therefore “we” are right).
I am pleasantly surprised that Obama has accomplished the ACA (or at least it was passed under his watch and wouldn’t have been passed under McCain’s). I am unpleasantly unsurprised about his violations of civil liberties, his robust prosecution of the never-ending war against Eurasia, and his robust prosecution of the war on drugs.
Now, I am a reluctant Obama supporter, even though I might vote 3d party in about an hour. I want the president to beat Romney, but it might be interesting is Johnson wins 5%.
I might have been more reluctant than you. For me, it was the devil we don’t know, against the two devils we do. Hillary from New York, and McCain the Hothead (whose personality i like better than Romney’s. McCain may blow up, but he doesn’t make enemies constantly).
my priority being finance reform. I don’t think obama has done a good job, but it’s far from the worst it could ahve been. PNC still in business, ya see?
Hey, we’re almost the opposite! Obama has been a fair bit worse than I expected (although I don’t regret voting for him), but the Republicans have nominated someone I find so thoroughly unacceptable that I have no real choice but to support the incumbent.
I thought you’d vote third party either Stein or Johnson
Household life has taken center attention, so I probably won’t be around for a couple days. But my reaction to this election?
It. Was. Beautiful.
I didn’t even know that this is what I wanted to happen until it all unfolded. I don’t mean the Obama victory specifically, but almost all of the particulars fell right into place. I’ll see if I can put something together at some point soon.