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“Watching the Election,” by Kira Schiavone
It’s been a while since you’ve had something from me; most of
what I would put up here tends to get redirected to Livejournal now.
But since I’m The Fedora Chronicles’ resident liberal democrat columnist and I
knew there would be about a hundred other columns on this subject
with a very different slant, I thought I’d add my two cents.
Watching the election coverage in a room full of teenage girls is
an experience like no other. It was the first election I’ve really
paid attention to. I remember very little of the Clinton years and
very little of what it’s like to not have war coverage every night
on the news. The 2004 election had Bush in it so I was only vaguely
aware of it. Now, this nation is no longer going to have Bush as its
president. While I favor that, the idea of it still feels very
strange to me. Bush has been president for as long as I’ve really
been paying attention. (My first memory of paying attention to
politics was the mock election between Bush and Gore we held in my 4th
grade social studies class that year. Gore won, by the way.) Obama
won this election; he will be our next president.
When CNN projected that Obama was going to win, they did it with
"Breaking News!" across the front, and then in smaller print after
"Obama Wins!" that it was their projection. That’s misleading. Once
it flashed up, the response was immediate from the others I was
with: screaming, shouting, and in some cases, tears of joy. I think
that’s a bit of an overreaction no matter who gets elected, to be
honest. I attempted to point out that it was only a projection and
not to go crazy yet, and was accused of being a spoilsport. I’m no
spoilsport; just cynical. I was expecting a long, drawn-out
contesting of votes.
When the speeches came on, it was McCain’s concession speech that
actually drew my attention. It was a very good speech, I think. But
I can’t help but wonder how he feels about it as a person, and what
Obama is like, as a person. We see them through speeches written for
them by other people. Those speeches were pre-written, there isn’t
any doubt of it, for it takes a while to come up with a speech that
good and that long.
But you were probably wondering about my take on the election
results. Obama won. Unlike many of those on the forums, I don’t see
this as a great sense of impending doom for the country. Unlike many
of those I live with, I don’t see this as a grand triumph for the
country either. I was angry at some of those I was watching with: I
don’t see what Obama’s relative hotness (yes, this was up for
discussion) or his race have to do with anything. I am angry at the
country for letting race come up so often. The triumph, they say, is
that this is the first black man to be president.
I say that the triumph, if indeed there is one, is getting an
idealist into the White House. I say that the triumph, if indeed
there is one, is the voice of this country speaking through its
elections. I say that the triumph is a break from those who support
the war on terror.
Am I pleased with the election results? Yes. But I don’t know how
much of that is because of the issues and how much of that is
because I dislike Bush. I definitely don’t know how much of it is
because I was ingrained that Democrats are good from a very early
age. I’m not old enough to vote; I didn’t deem it worthy of trying
to wade through all of the everything, because of the sheer volume
of everything. And when you come right down to it, either they were
going to elect Obama or they were going to elect McCain. My
knowledge, or lack thereof, on the subject wasn’t going to make the
slightest bit of difference. Maybe I’m just a cynic, but we’ve
elected another president. He is a man with vision doing something I
can’t imagine ever doing. He is a man. Human, flawed, just as the
rest of us are. Just as the Founding Fathers of America were, though
everyone seems loathe to admit it. Hopefully he will do right by our
country. What caught my eye, and my attention, in his speech was the
story of the woman who is 106 years old, and voted today. I found
myself wondering if I will be doing that in another 80 or 90 years,
and what I will have seen and experienced. I wondered if the winner
of that election will talk of me or another of my generation, and if
this election will be among the historic events listed as our having
witnessed. I wonder what those historic events will be; what that
speech would look like in another 80 or 90 years.
But what it showed me the most was that time keeps passing; the
world keeps turning; and no matter what the outcome of the election,
we will endure and survive. Because we are America. Our politics may
often be infuriating; our country may be ruled by big business; we
may have a startling increase in crime and an illegal immigrant
problem. We endure, survive, and continue fighting for what we
believe in. Because that is what America stands for. |
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