It's an exciting time. There is a politician with a big smile, new ideas, and a knack for connecting with the American people. He's promising change and a new way for politics and politicians to represent the real America, the middle class; To hold responsible those who have led us down the wrong road for the past eight year and to right those wrongs. It's infectious. The whole country is catching the fever and its spreading. With an unpopular President in the White House and a woefully ineffective Congress its time for an "outsider" to sweep in and change the world's perception of the United States.
I've heard this tale before. The first time I voted in a presidential election I couldn't wait to pull the lever. I was voting for change, for a fresh start, to sweep out the old and bring in a more youthful, more hopeful time. I wasn't necessarily voting for the candidate but for his ideals, his passion, his place in history representing a new generation.
Sound familiar? Four years later I realized that my exuberance needed to give way to more pragmatic thinking. That ideals and words are important, but that leadership demands experience and the ability to get things done. It means reaching across the aisle. It means knowing how Washington really works. It means being able to communicate to the American people that change requires action and sometimes those actions are painful. But that you have a plan - a real plan, not just rhetoric.
So if Barack gets you out to vote - God bless him. I hope that he isn't "all hat and no cattle" as characterized by Hillary Clinton. Because if he is then you'll be where I was after I voted for change - and Jimmy Carter.
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2 comments:
I wasn't registered (read: old enough) to vote when Carter was on the ballot, so part of me wants to defer to your experience (and I hope I know you well enough to know that doesn't mean jadedness).
But I have to disagree. I don't think we can underscore enough the importance of getting Americans to start thinking positively. And no, I haven't read The Secret, but I see what ineptitude mixed with insincerity have done for us as Americans and citizens of the world.
Of course we need a plan, of course we need specifics. Maybe I'm naive, but I feel all the candidates are about equal in terms of their rhetoric-to-reality ratio. The others just spin it differently.
I look at my two little boys and think about their future. Noah asked me yesterday about World War III and when it's going to happen. The question just made me think about who's steering the ship and where it's heading.
I think the person we need at the helm needs to have a vision for something bigger than what our leaders have been shooting for of late.
I think Barack Obama is the person to help turn American around and help us become that shining city upon a hill.
Voting for change and voting for Jimmy Carter might have been two different things.
As a comparison: I'd love to vote for a woman to be president, but I'm not going to vote for Hillary. She's not the right woman to be President.
Jimmy Carter wasn't the right President to bring about change.
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