Election Day in America
I’m a political junkie. And a news junkie. And a court watcher. I’m the kind who wades happily through stacks of documents mining the little gems scattered in obscure places, looking for the untold story, looking closely at how language is used in politics and law and media to shape the culture. I look at number crunching and story spinning and gravitate to voices of reason, wherever they can be found. It all comes together with considerable drama on election day. And I love it…
We wait for and anticipate this with great eagerness. If your party or beliefs are in power, Hooray! You get to reaffirm them. If your principles and beliefs are suppressed and belittled, Hooray! You get to assert and affirm them. We are a representative republic, and today is our day to determine who represents us.
Voting is a moral act. Whenever they hold a “Values Voters Summit” in Washington (or wherever) I always make the point that we’re all values voters. It just depends on whose values you accept as just and true and honorable and grounded in human dignity.
Campaigning for the mid-terms is now over, and we will have a new Congress and many new governors and many other new elected officials after the polls close and votes are counted. And at the end of the day, it was and remains all about ideas.
Power is shifting hands, and not just from one political party to the other. It’s going from elite powerbrokers to mainstream Americans once considered, dismissively, as the ‘Silent Majority.’
Voter discontent this year isn’t confined to the tea party. A new AP poll reports that 51% of Americans now think President Obama doesn’t deserve re-election.
But that campaign will begin tomorrow.
As for tonight, this will be quite a show as results come in across America, and I’m watching it all, and looking for the gems…
