America says "No Sale!"
I have enormous respect for John McCain. He's a great American, but so
are millions of others who are not destined to be President of the
United States. Watching the youth and the enthusiasm represented in
the huge Obama rallies on Election night, it was easy to recall JFK's
speech about "the torch has been passed to a new generation". We not
only watched the first non-white elected to the highest office in the
land, we watched the wholesale repudiation of an exhausted campaign
strategy. One candidate emphasized (although not exclusively) who he
was and what he would do if elected, and the other candidate
emphasized (although not exclusively) who he wanted us to believe his
opponent was and what he wanted us to fear his opponent would do if
elected. We bought the negative campaign during the last two
elections, and we wound up with 8 years of George Bush as a result.
The old school politicians rolled out the same schtick this time
around, but America wised up and said "No sale!" That's the first step
in the right direction. The next step will be to search out the ideas
and principles that unite us so that we can all work together and set
aside, at least temporarily, those partisan political priorities that
we too often allow to divide us. Time for everybody to reach across
the aisle and shake hands.