Monday, November 3, 2008

Be afraid, be very afraid

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On Friday last week, I got to celebrate my third Halloween in a row with the Omaha Jitterbugs. Before I met the Omaha Jitterbugs, I hadn't done any Halloween dress-up since I was a kid, but now I'm really starting to enjoy it. Vivian and I came as an angel and a devil once again, and we enjoyed seeing such elaborate costumes as Rob's turkey, Debbie's star-bellied sneetch, and Speed Racer.

The rest of the weekend was fairly uneventful. I finally got around to mounting our flat panel TV in the living room, so now it feels like we have a whole lot more space. Vivian and I are planning on an afternoon of tacos and a movie next Sunday, and I'm looking forward to getting some use out of it then.

As for the Presidential election, I didn't want my blog to become a depository for political commentary. I don't often share my political points of view with friends, mostly because I want to keep them. For my own therapy, however, I feel like I should write something.

I'm always impressed with how classy Republicans are when they lose. They don't demands recounts or cry about fraud at the voting booths. They don't whine about confusing arrows on a ballot or rigged voting machines, and they don't file lawsuits to have some votes recounted and others thrown out. The political right seems to come together and put their country first rather than their party. Maybe that's why they keep losing.

It's comforting to know, however, that change is a constant in politics. Four years ago, Bush had the White House and a strong majority in congress. Four years later it's flipped, and four years from now it could flip again. In 1992, Clinton had the white house and a majority of democrats in congress, and in two short years he was faced with a Republican majority for this rest of his presidential career. If Obama's "change" turns out to be business-as-usual tax and spend policy, we could have a Republican congress as early as 2010.

I won't try to predict what's going to happen over the next four years. Terrorist attacks, natural disasters, and any number of economic crises are all in the cards. My only hope is that Americans will start to discuss the issues in earnest again, rather than blindly placing all their hope in one man in the White House.

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