Monday, November 3, 2008

Ushering in the Next Era

I have never been one to write about politics. During the 2004 election, my parents told me to write about my experience in Ohio so I wouldn’t forget; they said it would be an experience for the books, a time unlike any other that was mine to document. Here we are, four years later, singing a reprise of that blazing chorus of hope and fear, and though I let it all seep over me before, maybe the time to write about it is now.

In fall 2004, Lorain County, Ohio saw an influx of visitors from across the nation pile out of vans to “get out the vote.” Celebrities made appearances, rallies were held, blue and red signs dotted front yards for miles. On Election Day, we watched the outcomes in other states come in from lines at our own polling places. During the six and a half hours that I spent waiting to vote, I was fed and entertained by fellow students and townspeople afraid that the long wait would send tired would-be voters home. I enjoyed Chinese food from a local restaurant, brought to my spot in line with a choice of sauces, listened to some of Oberlin’s best musicians perform violin concertos and organ pieces, avoided local media covering the “unexpected voter turnout,” did some schoolwork. Every so often, I’d chat with the others in line; we’d say we couldn’t believe how few voting machines there were, would our votes make it in on time, avoiding the real subject of why we were there: to change the nation. In 2004, unprecedented numbers of college students exercised their voting rights in Ohio. Home states like New York and Massachusetts and California seemed undeserving of our votes. Instead, we imposed ourselves on our temporary state, Ohio, not to impact life there but to impact the nation for which we stand, no matter which state we stand for it in.

In the end, our votes in Lorain County weren’t counted. Kerry indicated intentions to cede long before many of us even made it inside a polling booth. For weeks, it felt as though we had lost six and a half hours of our lives for the basic, unrealized premise that, in a democratic nation, every vote counts, when really ours didn’t even matter.

Like a dream deferred, the hope for change became focused on four years down the road, November 4, 2008, a date that seemed too many days of poor leadership away. We watched the American image abroad decline substantially through intifadas in Israel, invasions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and a slew of other questionable foreign relations decisions. Outside our own front doors, we sent children and teachers into underfunded failing schools, invested our money in an increasingly unstable economy, struggled to afford healthcare, and further perpetuated the view that Americans are greedy, uneducated consumers of the world’s products and resources who think about nobody other than themselves. Having by majority elected monkeys in suits to take vacations from a big white house on the American dime instead of improving our lives, we were held responsible for this action, in a sense, by getting what we deserved.

Now, on November 3, 2008, we brace for another day of reckoning. Most of us think we are ready for change, or at least know we desperately need it. Many of us think we see an opportunity for this in one of the candidates, though quite a few of us think we won’t see the change we need in either of our options. In the 2004 election, voters had the choice of the incumbent; they saw the familiar face of a man who didn’t seem to totally mess up our lives, compared to a stranger who said he would do great things but hadn’t had the opportunity to show that he really would. In 2008, the starting ground is flatter. Though both candidates have track records, neither has been the chief executive. Neither has had that unfair advantage of not totally messing things up, an advantage that sadly instills trust rather than disapproval in this country. As a result, we can hope that the man who wins tomorrow will be the one elected by the majority to show us what a fresh face in the White House can do for our nation.

On November 4, 2008, we exercise our right to elect the leaders of our government. We cast our votes for the person who most represents the values that we adhere to and the future we see for our country. All that we know now is that the Bush era is over; we can only hope that after tomorrow, we will not spend another four years waiting on a dream of strong, competent leadership deferred, but instead move full-force forward into four years of re-evaluation, reconstruction, and re-determination to make America a place where we want and deserve to live.

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