Today, I will argue, is the most important day that my fellow students remember as adults. 9/11, for most here, occurred somewhere in middle-school. A hazy, illformed and underinformed event whose significance wasn’t comprehended until years later.
Today is the day, finally, that we - the world - can get down to business that matters. The problems that matter - the issues and dangers that are real and aren’t fabricated by a duplicitous and unambiguously malicious government - evil is a word not misplaced.
Like many, I have a strong emotional investment in the outcome of this election. I am, at times, overcome with emotion when I hear Barack Obama speak - I am also overcome with a very different emotion every time I hear George Jr speak.
Barack Obama gives hope not merely to the United States - he brings hope to the globe, every Bush-forsaken square inch of it. Obama reminds us of the promise the United States made to the world when it assumed, largely uncontested, the position of unique super-power at the fall of the USSR.
Obama gives me great hope that the inflamed anti-Americanism that is a wound amongst Canadian’s can heal. That Canada can embrace our wayward ally once more and work hard to fix the problems that have been festering for eight unbearably long years - ignored entirely or deliberately aggravated by Bush and his cronies.
Like dental surgery it will take some painful drilling and extraction to rid ourselves of Bush and his pernicious influence - the sweeping and dramatic changes he was given license to affect will not come undone easily or unproblematically. From Iraq, Afghanistan to relations with Iran, India and Pakistan.
However, I do not wish to make hay over the eminent beneficence of Barack Obama - this man is unafraid of war. I hope that Obama, rather than regressing to late-Clinton isolationism - ignoring calls to arms from the international community, launching cruise missiles and dropping bombs in lieu of deploying troops; I hope that he instead deploys troops wisely in places that need them, where even a small modern military presence would over-awe belligerents - Sudan, Congo, Zimbabwe.
I hope that Obama is careful to distinguish Republican policy from Bush policy. To alienate the other party by painting them with the Bush-brush would be catastrophic for both his political legitimacy and his policy agenda. This, amongst other reasons, is why he was picked instead of Clinton and I hope he recognizes that.
I hope he maintains his intellectual integrity and does not bow to White House advisors telling him to dumb-down his message, strip out potential ambiguity and instead reduce the thoughts of the most powerful office on the planet to mere talking-point sound-bytes.
I do not think Obama is some Presidential-Jesus as some have characterized him. He is fallible, human and at least partially ego-driven. He is, however, an astute student of history and of experts - he will surround himself with the best minds anywhere; my hope is that he will listen to them when he must.
On more somber details, I hope that the Secret Service is prepared for the most endangered President since Abraham Lincoln. Obama’s mix of policy, ethnicity and political pedigree is the cocktail for assassination. The United States cannot afford to lose this President, especially at the hands of one of their own.
Obama is a voice for progressivism - irrespective of the content of his message this is important. It sets a tone that the answers for today’s problems lie in future solutions; the belief that innovation is important and new ideas are the only things capable of tackling new problems. This is not “out with the old in with the new,” this is about recognizing what is and is not working and changing those things that do not. Something that needs to happen here in the Great Snowy North.
I am hopeful for America - while this is insufficient to redeem them for the last eight years; it is a good start.
Good luck USA - get out and vote for your future.
EDIT: For the record, I’ve predicted 291 +/- 4 ECVs (54% of voting share) for Obama since August. Hopefully I’ve underestimated!