You, dear reader, are way ahead of us this time. As we put together this week's Valley Advocate, we have absolutely no idea how Tuesday's election turned out.
You, of course, saw it happen—whatever it was. As you read this, you're a day or two into whatever reaction you've had to the results. Us? We're still biting our nails on this side of the great event, waiting out the final day of campaigning.
As a rule, journalists should regard superlatives with great caution, but it's been hard not to get caught up in the broad consensus that the 2008 election is (was) the most important election in the lifetimes of even the oldest among us. Barack Obama, likewise, has proven himself to be a once-in-a-lifetime candidate, an historic figure who arrived on the scene at the best possible moment, bringing his political prowess and oratorical artistry to an electorate that had low and lowering expectations of its politics.
George Bush, the worst, most reviled president in history? Perhaps, but he and his party twice won enough electoral support to put the Republicans in position to steal the presidency. To unseat the party of war and corporate power would surely take more than a Gore or a Kerry. It would take something closer to a Kennedy, a Roosevelt. Remarkably, a Rushmore-worthy figure in the form of a multi-racial community organizer from Chicago by way of Hawaii not only stepped forward but prevailed against a slate of more typical, establishment-vetted candidates, including Hillary Clinton.
At the risk of stepping deeper into the superlative trap, in Obama the Democrats not only chose their best candidate, but the person best suited to restore faith in the presidency and, ultimately, in the United States of America.
Whatever happened on Election Day—and I pray Obama has won—I have a hard time believing that three decades of Republican rule capped off by eight years of Bush radicalism can be turned around on a dime. As far as the pendulum swung under the Republicans like Ronald Reagan, Newt Gingrich and George W. Bush, I remain skeptical that it will ever swing as far in the other direction. That skepticism is reinforced just now as I listen to a campaign ad for Congressman John Olver, the Amherst Democrat, which I've heard nearly every two years for more than a decade. "John Olver's been everywhere" in his big, largely rural district, the jingle goes. Been everywhere he may have, but without much effect, it would seem.
For every Barack Obama out there, we have hundreds, even thousands of John Olvers—solid, decent Democrats who have remained faithful to the party's core values but collectively allowed corporatists, in a marriage of convenience with religious fundamentalists, to lead the United States to the brink of disaster, deeply dividing the nation in the process. The question that haunts me: is one Barack Obama enough?
As we put this edition of the Valley Advocate to bed, the country is, we hope, on the verge of taking a first giant step in the right direction. We are hopeful at the prospect that, in addition to defeating John McCain, Obama has helped his party take solid control of both houses of Congress, increasing the chances of a swift and sustainable rescue for a troubled nation.
If our hope turns out to have been misplaced, we will find ourselves on the verge of something that, although it will look familiar given much of what we've seen in recent years, is too horrible to imagine.
