It's Over

The Presidential Election of 2012, that is.  Seriously, who couldn’t empathize with the four year old little girl from Fort Collins who broke out sobbing when she heard just one too many negative ads for “Bronco Bama” and Mitt Romney?  Talk about going over the cliff!

I was right there with her.  And her parents don’t even let her watch TV!  She was reacting to the NPR blog.  Tell me, how many of you just immediately muted the campaign ads as soon as they started?  I hated them.  And, I’m in a HUGE Blue State.  I can’t even imagine what it was like in the nine battleground states.

Who are those ads for????!!!  I knew who I was voting for four years ago.  As did a whole lot of others.  Really, who was “undecided” a month ago?  How independent are the Independents anyway?  I’ll bet 90% of them knew long before last week.  Who was truly influenced by those ads?  I don’t have a clue.

Ahhhh....how quiet last Wednesday was....except for the 500 Christmas ads.  I’m probably going to wear out my mute button.

But, as of Tuesday night, the electorate spoke.  Pretty clear to me!  Get on with the business of the People!  Oh, and who are the People????  Just look at the differences in the Obama and Romney supporters and voila! there it is!

The segregated South I grew up in is done....DONE!  Oh, I know you’re thinking we haven’t had separate institutions for a long time.  Wrong!  Just spend a day in an urban aka minority high school and a day in a suburban predominantly white high school and you’re going to get one helluva education.  And, believe me, you’re going to prefer the suburban education!!

For years, our country has undereducated our minority youth and it plays out in the most insidious ways....pick an institution....jail--welfare--mental wards--unstable families.
Most probably, it’s a smorgasbord of all of them.  It is almost unheard of to buck these overwhelming odds.

For years, I worked in urban politics....organizing and getting out the vote in a 90% black district.  Most of the time, I was bringing them to the polls to vote for someone who didn’t look anything like them.  There was a natural distrust between these two very different cultures.  Understandably so, since neither side had no meaningful contact with the other.

Put yourself in their shoes.  Why vote for someone who just doesn’t get it?  Someone who goes back to their 4 bedroom colonial with the perfect family and a Lexus and Escalade in the driveway.  Someone who doesn’t have to worry about his next door neighbor breaking in to rob him so he can go out and get another hit.

And then came Obama with the Hope and Change message.  It provided much needed and long overdue hope that minorities and women can be at the seat of power and represent the people who have way too long been underrepresented.  It has changed our country forever.

And for four years, the people who needed that message watched while Obama was beaten down...not like dogs in Mississippi...but with words that attacked his character, his commitment to minorities, his inability to solve the vast problems he inherited from arguably the worst president ever to serve.  God himself couldn’t have balanced that budget in four years.

Even I lost faith when he couldn’t get legislation passed to let the Bush Tax Cuts on the wealthiest citizens expire.  I’m not happy that he couldn’t get a single payer health care reform but I’m thankful we at least started the changes with Obama Care.  Way overdue.

And I’ve listened to the other side espouse “fiscal responsibility.”  Rather hypocritical now, isn’t it?  When Bush was given an unlimited, unconditional credit card to attack preemptively a country that hadn’t attacked us?  Over a speech that claimed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when they didn’t???  You disappointed me, Colin Powell.

How upsetting it is to see Facebook friends call the President a liar, a socialist, a Muslim.  OMG, the list is endless.  And pointless now.

Even in the face of the Supreme Court’s Citizens’ United ruling that treats corporations as private citizens, the people spoke.  It is absolutely obscene the amount of money that was spent in this election!

Karl Rove’s super PACs spent $400 million and lost every race save one lone Indiana Congressional race giving the PAC about a 1% return on their investment.  But, does he back down?  Nooooo....  First, it was Hurricane Sandy’s fault.  Then, he claims it would’ve been a blow out for Obama save for the big money from his PAC.  Now, he’s sunk to new depths blaming Obama for “suppressing” the vote.  REALLY???

Then, there’s LInda McMahon, the WWF billionaire who spent almost $100 million of her own money trying to take Joe Lieberman’s Senate seat in Connecticut.  But, the voters decided to send a Democrat instead.

I hate attack ads and Obama put out his fair share of them.  But, I actually take some comfort in that after seeing John Kerry swift boated for his exemplary military service.  I’m tired of seeing wussy Democrats.  Stand up for what you believe in!

Like I said, I grew up in full blown segregation....where most black people didn’t vote because why should they?  Who was representing their interests?

Those days are gone.  Even in my blue state, I waited on line for 35 minutes.  I have never waited more than 5.  I can’t even imagine that people waited for more than four hours to have their voice heard.  It was just that important to them.

Four years ago, I thought that election was the most significant in our history.  But, I’m rethinking that.  I think the 2012 election was truly momentous.  2008 was not an anomaly.  This is our future.  The underrepresented are growing in numbers.  They are not going to sit on the sidelines ever again.

This country is moving FORWARD!