Communication consultant Allan Jenkins tries to tell us the race is over, and that it's only the cable news creeps who want us to think the contest is still on.
I think we're the ones who don't want it to be over. No, we do want it over—it's like a repeating fever-dream, all these terms echoing in our brains paling around with terrorists, Joe the Plumber, early voting, Bradley Effect, socialist, working class whites, cultural conservatives and on and on.
We know we have to wake up, but we've been dreaming so long we don't know what the silence will sound like.
We don't know what it will be like, if Obama wins, to suddenly have a friend in the White House—or at least, an enemy of a wholly different nature.
We don't know what comes next. And we want one more day of what's familiar—the cozy communal feeling that if only we throw these bums out ....
Jenkins, an American who lives in Denmark, says he looks forward to going to bed when "the first tip state" goes to Obama.
I look forward to staying up, until long after the fat lady sings.
How are you feeling?
I think you summed it up nicely. The election, and our excitement of getting rid of the current administration, has been going on for so long, it will be strange for it to finally be over.
Posted by: Jenny Babich | November 03, 2008 at 09:52 AM
I think it will be closer than people (the media) are expecting.
Posted by: Susan | November 03, 2008 at 10:05 AM
Oops, forgot to add, that, no matter who ends up President, we have to wake up the next morning and support him as one country. And hope that he makes the right decisions for us as one people who need economic security, healthcare, education, etc.
Posted by: Susan | November 03, 2008 at 10:07 AM
If I hear one more hysterical reference to "communism" (always incorrectly defined or understood) and "evil," and other horrors, I'm going to implode. So let the fun begin.
Posted by: Diane | November 03, 2008 at 10:52 AM
"support him as one country"
The last time I heard this was after 9/11. Will it happen this time? It's one of those many unknowns I think we're all a little afraid of.
@Diane: yes, yes, yes. Bill Maher said Friday night that this has been a wonderful election. Yes, but better for the comedians than for the audience.
Posted by: David Murray | November 03, 2008 at 11:18 AM
Interesting that my perspective is so different on this. Maybe it's because I'm looking at it from the other side of our shared border.
I don't think this election is going to be close at all. If anything, I think it is going to be a much more defined and decisive result than is being predicted, because all the blasted, venerated "polls" that everyone is so fond of spouting, and predicting, and behaving based on, do not include the views or plans of the "youth vote." The vast majority of polls are still done by phone - and guess what - the kids do things via text these days so the likelihood that this large (and, for once, seemingly much more engaged) demographic is represented in these polls is small.
And as far as "...have to support him as one country," again, sorry, but no. The President of the United States is (ostensibly) an elected official who is supposed to do what's best for the majority of US citizens. Is that how it actually works? Not so much. IMHO, what the American people TRULY need to do "as a country" is stand up en masse and DEMAND that their elected officials deliver on the things they promise in order to get elected.
How do they do that? I'm glad you asked. They do that by getting actively involved in their local political scene, by organizing, showing up at town meetings, stayed informed about what is happening (and not happening) in their state and local government, and by throwing out of office representatives who don't represent their constituents.
It's always easy to Monday-morning quarterback, and bitch about what's going on from your kitchen table while watch a sit-com. It takes more, and asks more, to get involved enough to do something about it. I have high hopes that this election and its aftermath, will re-ignite that spirit (historically what America was known for and envied by other countries) in more of the American people.
Posted by: Kristen | November 03, 2008 at 11:45 AM
If all I believed in was the political system, I would be in total despair:
A McCain win -- weeks of legal challenges, recounts, general ugliness all around, followed by four years of vitriol from the left.
An Obama win -- four years of vitriol from the right, and who knows what to expect from the federal government. Higher taxes at an absolute minimum.
But history tells me that the American people will generally hew to common sense -- moving left at times, moving right at times, but generally hovering around the center. We survived Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter, and I daresay we'll survive either McCain or Obama. Whoever wins tomorrow needs to learn the lesson Bill Clinton did -- go too far in one direction, and the American people will jerk you back.
Posted by: Glynn | November 03, 2008 at 12:25 PM
Yes, Glynn, but isn't there a paradox here. Don't you think we need some radical, or radically reactionary government interventions in health care, energy, education and the economy?
While I agree with Kristen that it's not enough, and in many cases not appropriate, to get behind the president right or wrong ....
But I know you've spent time on the front lines of education. How do you envision a typical moderate American government fixing such a desperate problem without doing some pretty controversial, dramatic things?
Posted by: David Murray | November 03, 2008 at 12:55 PM
David:
May I ask, what is so "desperate" about these times that make them any more desperate than, say, The Great Depression, the 60s, the 70s with Carter, the recession of the 80s, etc. etc.?
You're always saying how horrible, HORRIBLE things are RIGHT NOW . . . I'm not being argumentative. I'm genuinely curious: why are things so desperate right now?
Iraq? Global warming? Healthcare? Why all the desperation right now, in 2008?
Depending on who you talk to, we've always been either the greatest country in the world, or a steaming shithole of shallow consumerism.
Steve C.
Posted by: Steve Crescenzo | November 03, 2008 at 02:04 PM
David, the solution to the problems of public schools doesn't lie with government or with school boards. Ultimately, about the only thing the government can do is throw more money at it, which hasn't worked up to now so I don't know why we'd expect a different outcome when we do it again. The #1 problem facing school districts, particularly inner-city or urban districts, is the collapse of the urban nuclear family since the 1960s. That is beyond the control of the teachers and administrators, beyond the school boards' control, and beyond the state and federal governments' control (although we could speculate about what contributed to the collapse, and most of the fingers would probably point to federal social legislation in the 1960s; good intentions paved the road again). Any intervention, no matter how dramatic, that ignores the collapse of that family structure is doomed.
Charter schools have had very limited success for that very reason -- children need a stable home in order to flourish and learn. If an Obama Administration would start from that viewpoint, some good might be accomplished. But I'm not hopeful, because this isn't where he's coming from. For that matter, a McCain Administration wouldn't be, either -- it would be starting from a different wrong perspective.
What passes for public education in many urban school districts, however, is criminal. A few heroic teachers trying to teach, unions more interested in union power than anything else, indifferent or hostile parents (most of whom never cross the threshold for a meeting with a teacher), school administrators more concerned about job security than about teaching children.
I had my two children in Catholic schools, even though I wasn't Catholic. I paid full load tuition -- $3000 a year (we're talking the 1990s here). My local public school district -- cost per student worked out to $6000 a year. The urban school district received more than $9000 a year, mostly from the state. Guess which group had the highest test scores, the highest graduation rates, the highest college attendance rates? Yep, those little Catholic schools. And guess which group had the most stable families? Yep, those Catholics again. And none of the teachers or principals were nuns -- they were professional educators.
Sorry for the rant. But it matters, because I saw the carnage in urban schools.
Posted by: Glynn | November 03, 2008 at 02:06 PM
Oh, never mind my comment. You were calling the education system "desperate." I didn't catch that.
Great comment, Glynn. I couldn't agree more. That's the ugly elephant sitting in the corner nobody wants to talk about.
Steve C.
Posted by: Steve Crescenzo | November 03, 2008 at 02:13 PM
My problem is that it's not that nobody wants to talk about the ruined family structure, but that it's ALL they want to talk about.
You know whereof you speak, Glynn, and so do I. My wife teaches in one of these inner-city charter schools, made up of super-intelligent staffs and a principal desperate to turn these kids' lives around but not realizing that "turning kids' lives around" isn't something a school can do, all by itself.
You don't propose a solution to inner-city trouble, and neither do I. But I DO propose doing what it is the government is supposed to do, which is offer really fine schools. What if we forgot about "solutions," and just did what we do for suburban kids: Built fantastic schools--with air-conditioning, good computer labs, libraries, etc.--and staffed them with great teachers, whatever the cost (and whatever the union outcry).
Do you think such a move might IN ITSELF have an effect on the students and their parents?
I know a hell of a lot of smart colleagues of my wife who are staking massive amounts of energy and courage--their whole careers--on the idea that a good school is the beginning of a better community.
I'm not sure they're right.
But I believe Americans owe it to ourselves to find out if they're right, on a large scale.
Maybe you have a different idea. But if they are "public schools," and we're not content to let them continue the way they are, then we do, in fact, have to turn to the government for a dramatic solution, even if the solution is some form of privatization. Do we not?
(And by the way, I don't think Obama, who knows these communities and these schools, would disagree with anything I've said above, or you've said above, Glynn.)
Posted by: David Murray | November 03, 2008 at 02:42 PM
One more thing: Ironically, education is my hobbyhorse issue, as Steve knows. I edited an education magazine when I was in my twenties, I befriended an education wonk around the same time, and as I've said, I'm married to a teacher.
Obama, as much as I love him--I'm embarrassed to admit that I had a dream the other night where I actually kissed him on top of the head to wish him good luck--is not particularly compelling on the subject of education, one way or the other. At least, I haven't heard him be.
I like him so much because I believe inner-city urban neighborhoods are one of the great shames of this country, and I trust that any educated person who's been closely acquainted with them won't ignore them the way they've been ignored for so damned long.
But as for his education policy: We'll see.
Sorry to go on.
Posted by: David Murray | November 03, 2008 at 02:48 PM
You kissing Obama atop the head in a dream was worth reading through all the posts in their entirety. That's golden right there.
Posted by: Eileen | November 03, 2008 at 04:02 PM
And I ended up staying up until the Old Fart conceded and Dingbat was ushered back to the Green Room.
It was just too exciting a night to go to bed. I had two computers running -- one with two screens, plus the TV.
What a night.
Posted by: Allan Jenkins | November 06, 2008 at 02:30 PM
Yeah, Allan. I wouldn't have expected any different.
I was equally bee-like in my information analysis for the first half of the night. But later, the spirit began to carry me to a more spiritual place.
My wife said, "What are you going to tell your daughter when she asks you what you did the night Obama got elected? Are you going to tell her you got drunk?"
"Hell yes!"
Posted by: David Murray | November 06, 2008 at 03:34 PM