Image from huffingtonpost.com

Barack Obama was elected president of the United States of America last night.

The most emotional part of the evening was seeing this image on The Huffington Post saying “We HAVE overcome.” That is the epitome of hope. This is not a perfect nation by any regard. We were oppressed by an imperial force, we underwent a great civil war, we struggled with extending the right to vote to large segments of our population. But as Obama taught us all earlier this year, we are striving for a more perfect union.

And last night, I think this union became just a little more perfect.

While waiting in line, I was thinking about why I was about to vote for Obama. I’ve heard a recurring refrain from everyone I talked to who has voiced skepticism about him and his campaign: He’s good at delivering speeches. I’ve wondered whether I was merely being swayed by “fancy speeches”, by mere emotion rather than rationality. Standing queued up in that hot room, I thought about tax plans, health care proposals, energy policies, foreign policies, the Iraq war. I then thought about patriotism and history. It was a long wait mind you.

But I think what was most emblematic of this election was last night on television. Here in Virginia, which is hotly contested, we have been getting bombarded by both campaigns especially with TV ads. Even though Obama’s been outspending McCain here with like 30 commercials to every one of his, last night there was a virtual blitz with both campaigns blanketing the airwaves. And I noticed a stark difference between the two campaigns in those commercials. In the McCain ads, you had grainy recordings of Biden saying we’ll be “tested” with Obama as president, or questions about going under the knife with someone who had never done surgery before. In the Obama ads, you had Obama himself talking about his tax plan or about his background. While one campaign was running on fear, the other was running on hope. (I’m generalizing, but you get the point)

And I think that’s why I’m voting Obama in this election. I’m tired of fear. I’m tired of leaders that want to make us afraid of the world, that want us to believe they have all the answers. I don’t think Obama has all the answers. I don’t think he’s the Messiah. But he espouses what I believe about this country, that we can rise above our differences, that patriotism takes on many forms, that the American people don’t want to be told to shut up and go to the mall.

So I decided to vote for hope over fear. Whether that’s emotional or rational, THAT I really can’t decide.

His being African-American notwithstanding, Barack Obama came out from being a nonentity at the 2000 DNC to being the keynote speaker in 2004. He went on to defeat the Hillary machine, to whome EVERYONE pretty much handed the nomination in 2007. He’s run a very impressive campaign against John McCain that has attempted to lift politics in this country rather than drag it through the gutter.

But of course we can’t ignore the fact that he’s African-American. I used to debate with friends on the question of what will we have first? An African-American president or a woman president. Hands down, I said we would have a woman president. For one, there are many great woman leaders in this country already. Secondly, women are hella organized. Third, race is still an issue in this country. I hate to say it, but America has a long way to go from being a city on a hill when it comes to race. And the recent McCain-Palin rallies have shown it.

People are shouting “terrorist” and “kill him” in reference to Obama. People are saying they would never vote for a n—. Others are calling him an Arab. And all these people are intent on believing that he’s a Muslim, will make the national religion Muslim, and turn us all gay. I never thought that any election in the United States would get this ugly. If Obama were to win this election, after January 20th, some of what these people are saying would be considered a federal offense.

Believe me when I say that there is passion on both sides of this election. It looks like there are plenty of people ready to riot if McCain loses. If Obama were to lose the election, I’m sure there would be Obama supporters that would riot. The question is: Who has more guns?

UPDATE: And just after posting this, I read this article about how those other Gods will starting thinking their bigger than us. Run! It’s metaphysical invasion!

What really depressed me last week was that lurking behind this hope that Obama could rise above race in this election were notions that people weren’t ready to vote for a black candidate. Obama’s poll numbers in New Hampshire were staggering, yet he lost. Was it because people there were willing to state publicly that they would support a black candidate but that in private they would vote otherwise? Is America not ready for that kind of change? Are people here still THAT racist???

But South Carolina answered no. South Carolina said, “Yes, we can change.” And I felt it. I felt the hope returning to me. I felt like “a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too”.

And on the night of the primary, I was riding high when the first person to get on the airways was…President Clinton??? Give me a break! And he delivers a snarky, half-ass concession speech talking about HIS achievements. That’s when I realized it really IS Billary. It’s two for the price of one again. Only this is a bargain I’m not falling for again.

On the Republican side, Mitt Romney’s campaign is starting to gain traction with a 3rd victory. The South Park guys put it eloquently. What we may see in the general election is a contest between Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton: two people that a majority of the American people can’t stand. Two people that voters have come out in huge numbers to vote against. Two people that represent what big money and Establishment credentials get you. Basically, it’ll be a vote between a Giant Douche and a Turd Sandwich.

And all of this makes me cynical. It’s not about fancy words and high hopes. It’s not about those lofty words we keep hearing about: change and experience. It’s about believing that this time it can be different, that the cynics aren’t always right, that we can leap forward on a miracle. But maybe those are all just fancy, make-believe ideas for a fancy, make-believe world. So if Chris Matthews is right, if the cynics are right, then who knows what November will have in store for us. As for me, it’s a tossup between a Giant Douche and a Turd Sandwich. And that makes me cynical.

And I think he can win. He’s become a shrewd politician. Think about it, he understands that politics is not about litanies of promises or strictly about experience and how good a candidate’s resume is. He understands it’s about narratives. It’s about the story you tell. When people say, “It’s too early. He should wait a couple of election cycles,” he counters with MLK’s “fierce urgency of now”. When people say, “He’s too fresh. He doesn’t have the experience,” he talks about having the right kind of experience and the wrong kind of experience. When people talk about him being black enough or white enough, he asserts that he’s not running for Black America or White America but the UNITED States of America. And most importantly, he’s talking about CHANGE, when the people are yearning, shouting, screaming for CHANGE.

So my vote’s for CHANGE. My vote’s for Barack Obama.

But I finally made it. I swept up to the top of the steps — one by one — seeing Honest Abe peek out onto the capital horizan. And there I was, all of a sudden, in the presence of the Great Emancipator himself in all his glory. It’s almost a religious experience…even after all the times I’ve been there. It always reminds me of the ancient Temple of Zeus from the days of yore…whatever yore means. And when you think about it, all the cities of the world…from Rio and its Christ the Redeemer statue at Corcovado to Paris and Notre-Dame Cathedral…the rest of the world is littered with monumental tributes in the name of religion. Yet here in Washington, our tributes are not generally for the sake of religious figures but rather ordinary men and women. OUR capital city contains tributes to fallen soldiers and great political leaders. Rather than Jesus or the Virgin Mary, we see visions of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

So then I think about what it is in the American spirit that impels us to “worship” these figures and give them god-like status in our American pantheon. But then it struck me. It’s not that we are raising them to the level of gods. All of these people stood for something, symbolized a value, and it is not these people that we are elevating, but the values they stood for. It is these American values that we wish to worship and hold sacred. It binds us all as Americans. When Jefferson wrote, “We hold these truths to be self-evident…that all men are created equal…”, when Martin Luther King said, “I have a dream…”, when Roosevelt shouted, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself…”, they were espousing our values.

So whenever I see a monument — which happens often in this city — I think about these values. I think about the American religion. It is something deeper than partisan rancor, deeper than Jesus. It’s the thing that truly unites all of us Americans. The anthem, the flag, the eagle all prostrate themselves in this temple, the temple of the great American experiment. So if a politician were to ask me how to get in touch with the American people, I’d smile and point to the Lincoln Memorial and say, “Talk to the man upstairs.”

His paintings almost have a certain intrinsic value system. They espouse a way at looking at life…rosy in some ways, starkly real in others…but all of them evoke an ideal. Some could say it is an American ideal. Now I’m not white, so aside from the “White people are so cute!” feelings they muster, I see within them an exuberance for life…something characterized by the American people…an unabashed willingness to reach out into new frontiers, to greet new challenges with a fresh face and an open palm, to cherish our paltry existence on this dear earth of ours with pride and dignity. These are traits I see as uniquely American.

After the election, many of my blue state friends began to wonder about the red states. What happened? Where’s the America I knew? How did America become so fundamentalist? I was wondering that myself. And of course, it’s caused this great rift in the nation…a nation that puts “E pluribus unum” (Out of many, one) on its coins. Yet here we are. It’s we versus them.

But it’s not. I keep hearing that the Democrats have lost touch with the American people, that religious fundamentalism is all the rage now. And perhaps too they will get someone like Pat Robertson or God knows who else on their bandwagon. But I look at the paintings of Norman Rockwell, and I see the real America. There’s a simple truth to them that the Democrats have lost sight of (and the Republicans exploit). They say all politics are local, and they’re right. When your life consists of saying grace at the dinner table, getting ready for the prom, getting the latest gossip from the neighbors, what do you care about healthcare and lockboxes?

I must admit I’m a blue stater in my own way, so I don’t think GW Bush necessarily speaks for these people. But for the love of God, there’s got to be someone out there that does!