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Presidential election provides identity check
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Published: November 5, 2008
WASHINGTON – Car and truck horns blared and shouts of joy filled the air in the nation's capital Tuesday night as the TV networks proclaimed Barack Obama the next president.
The voters had spoken, and history was being made. Americans would have their first African American president. The election was changing Congress too. Democrats were adding to their majority in the Senate and House.
Presidential elections are our quadrennial identity check, defining who are as a people and the direction we want to go as a country. The presidential candidate who persuades more of us he understands and will lead us there gets the job.
Barack Obama made the case and will be the 44th president. What did we Americans learn about ourselves in electing him?
The big issue on people's minds was the economy, exit polls reported, to no one's surprise. But the depth of the worry was telling and sets up the challenges ahead for Obama and the Democrats.
Nine in 10 voters feared the economy's future was not good and said they were very or somewhat worried about it. Three in four said the country was on the wrong track. Voters disapproved of President Bush and the Congress by nearly the same large margins – 71 and 73 percent.
To those who say the election was a mandate for more government action, consider this: Most voters said they also disapprove of the $700 billion Wall Street bailout.
Some analysts said the country hasn't been this dispirited since the 1930s.
In Obama, voters chose to put their faith in a relative newcomer to the national scene over a Washington veteran, John McCain. They picked the Democrat, a younger man who promised hope and change while his Republican opponent attacked him for being untested, risky and a liberal.
Even though Bush couldn't run for a third term, Obama yoked McCain to the unpopular president, claiming McCain would follow Bush's policies. Millions of voters wanted to repudiate the Bush presidency. Their anger and resentment helped propel Obama to victory.
Obama's appeal was also inspirational. We learned that Americans can still have a sense of shared political purpose. Apathy, once thought epidemic, was eradicated, at least temporarily, as Obama united both young and new voters, African Americans and Hispanics. College-educated whites split between Obama and McCain.
We also learned Tuesday that we Americans can successfully put on an election -- with a huge turnout and without drama. All day, enormous crowds of voters snaked in long, peaceful lines toward the polls. They waited when they had to.
The system worked. Having a fairly trouble-free election should go far toward reassuring people that the country can solve its problems.
The presidential election of 2008 will go down in history as the start of a new era.
For the first time since 1981, there will not be someone named Bush or Clinton in the White House.
Come Jan. 20, it will be a new day at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
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