My Country?

There's so much sturm and drang associated with this presidential election. I try to avoid most of it. I try to pay attention to the things that matter, at least to me. I don't believe Obama's the messiah, the second coming of anything. I believe that he is precisely what he is: a politician. He's ambitious, shrewd and calculating. He's also well-spoken, smart and capable of balancing complex ideas in his single brain. OK, that last one sounds a little "superhero-ish," but considering what we've had the past (nearly) eight years, a cadaver would look like a genius.

As for McCain, I tried to be objective, and to believe that he was indeed some sort of maverick, someone who bucked either party to get the right and necessary things done. Other than his opposition to farm subsidies, and his crossing the aisle to cosponsor campaign finance legislation (neither of which has had a discernible impact on how business gets done in D.C.), I can't figure out how and whether McCain is different. He's backtracked on his previous opposition to Bush's tax cuts, and has publicly announced his ignorance of economic issues. Not encouraging at a time of seeming economic meltdown here in the good 'ole US of A.

So balancing my usual skepticism against my desperate, mad, screaming desire to see this country do a radical 180, I find myself falling down squarely on one side of the choice fence. Although I know he'd inherit a monumental pile of excrement, I have to hope, pray, and do what else I can to try to get Obama elected.

No, I don't think he'll be able to dig us out of the bottomless well of problems we're stuck in, but at least he's not impoverished re: the vision thing. He actually has some ideas about where we might go as a country and why it matters that we arrive at one destination vs. another. He can articulate--and might actually start us down the road toward--a future I'd want to embrace, both for myself and for my children.

If my prayers go unanswered, I've got Plan B. I've told my husband that we'll start shopping for real estate outside these borders. Another round of the same old Republican crap and I'm done. This country won't be mine any more, and I'm not sure it'd be worth sticking around to see it collapse under the weight of so much dead thinking, mean-spiritedness, and ugly disregard for the rights, privileges, obligations, openness, and optimism that have made the United States great. Or at least once did.