Feeling blue

Indiana, for the first time in 44 years, has gone blue. And I’m not really all that surprised.

I’m glad this election is over. Like most people I’m tired of the campaign ads, tired of the talking heads, tired of the glad-handing and pandering and what-have-you. I was not an Obama supporter (though I did flirt with it for a time), but fully expected him to win so the outcome of yesterday’s election was more or less a formality for me.

Let’s just say I went to bed early.

More than anything, the campaign for this election left me disappointed. I am happy for -- and if I’m to be completely honest also a little jealous of -- Obama’s supporters. They were (are) real believers, and had a candidate who could (can) inspire. Obama is certainly charismatic, charming, engaging, even a little seductive. I wanted to believe, to get on the bandwagon because this is a guy who pulls you in and, somehow, gives you faith that he, unlike all the others before him, will deliver.

McCain? Not so much.

My friend Richard has said more than once that Obama is our generation’s Kennedy, and I suppose he’s right about that. It would have been nice to be a part of that kind of movement. (Then again I’m not a Kennedy fan either, so there you go.)

But in the end I just didn’t (don’t) buy what he was selling. I’m concerned about his agenda and where it will take us, even more concerned now that he appears to have the Congress firmly on his side – a Congress which proves, time & again, that they can’t always be trusted (no matter their political persuasion). He’s got his work cut out for him, to be sure, but right now the deck seems to be stacked in his favor.

Here’s hoping he’s the best thing to happen to this country.

And here’s hoping that four years from now I’ll have someone that I can believe in, too.