A Different Election

The November 4th election was different. The lines for voting had a different feel; the angles that the media took were different; the reason for knowing it was Election Day was different.

America had a cause. The cause was not necessarily relegated to one candidate. The cause this time was just to have a voice again. Americans by the thousands awoke from a political slumber and reinvested in their country by participating in the election.

Let’s hope it doesn’t stop there. Voting for a candidate, whether your choice wins or not, does not let you off the hook. You still have the responsibility to stay informed on what the president-elect, and later the president, intends to do. Who surrounds the president? What do other countries think of the president and his actions?

I’m closely following Barack Obama’s choice of candidates and staff members. If he does not surround himself with an array of viewpoints and knowledge, we’ll end up on a road that has no yield signs, or wastes our time and spirit with detours that we didn’t ask for.

Obama has laid out a long list of promises. He is an inspirational speaker. He seems to understand that America wants different. But he’s got a huge job ahead of him turning different into better in a majority’s eyes.

I firmly believe if Barack Obama does not take the pulse of America after every action he takes for the first two years of his presidency, he won’t get a second term.

On the other hand, if Americans don’t speak up, write letters, discuss and debate the pros and cons of his actions, they’ve given him a free ticket to do as he pleases. Americans have to let him know he was elected to provide for the good of the country, not for the good of a political party, or lobbyists, or his memoirs. He was made president to lead, not to rule.

Our forefathers knew this, from experience. They had already experienced governments that dictated and answered only to small influential groups. They sat down over two hundred years ago and crafted documents and policies for a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Obama has to understand that Americans are the country. People create industry, People spend money. People travel. People fight the wars. This country is people first.

But we as Americans need to return to the thoughts and hopes of our forefathers as well. We have to demand a government that is of the people. This means a government where your integrity and your knowledge are valued by the people you lead. We have to continue to show passion for elections, even the smallest, or this will not be a government by the people. It will be a government by the influencers. And Americans have to hold the government, federal, state, and local, accountable or this will not be a country for the people. It will be a government influenced by some, heralded by enemies and laughed at by nations we once thought of as secondary.

We can’t waste this opportunity. If we do, we deserve whoever and whatever takes up residence on Philadelphia Avenue.