America Celebrates Historic Election

Nov 05, 2008 in Commentary, Federal Government, Legislative Branch, Matthew S. Urdan, President

The throngs await newly elected President Barack Obama to speak.

It has really been an incredible and exciting year on so many levels it defies description. Easily one of the most important developments shaping the outcome of the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election was the financial collapse on Wall Street and the subsequent outrage by the American People. In every exit poll conducted across the country on election day, the economy was the number one issue on voters’ minds. But the campaign did not start out this way. Two years ago, for many the only issue that mattered was the war in Iraq, and it seemed a foregone conclusion that this November the face-off was destined to be between Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton.

During the course of the two-year campaign process, the United States electorate has been energized like never before with the potential candidacy of Hillary Clinton and the candidacies of “celebrity” politicians like Barack Obama and Sarah Palin. And for those reasons, when the financial collapse took place, literally millions of outraged Americans were watching as the President and Congress were debating what to do and designing the unprecedented $700 Billion Bailout Package.

While the financial collapse and bailout is a dark event in our nation’s history, what was inspiring were the millions of phone calls and emails Americans made and sent to our elected officials at their state offices and in Washington. This was participation in the legislative process like Congress has never seen before. And what was outrageous about the entire process, whether or not you believe the bailout package was necessary, was that phone calls and emails were approximately 9-1 against the bailout bill and Congress ignored the wishes of the American people and passed it anyway. Whether this is arrogance on the part of our elected officials or Congress showing us that they know more than we do is hard to say, but Americans are angry that Congress and Washington have just not been getting it.

Yesterday we saw the largest voter turnout in our country’s history. In choosing Obama as the 44th president, the United States took a historic leap beyond its legacy of slavery and toward healing racial tensions just four decades after the tumultuous Civil Rights movement. Politically, Obama’s election amounted to a wholesale rejection of the status quo after eight years of Bush and Republican rule. Voters were willing to take a chance on a relative newcomer to the national stage. Obama is a 47-year-old black man from Chicago with a liberal voting record who is in just his first Senate term and has offered few specifics on how he would govern. But culturally, Obama’s victory was so much more meaningful for a nation on the verge of becoming a true melting pot.

Americans are energized and want to participate in the political process. They have voted. Their voices have been heard. But what happens now? Participation is not just casting a vote for President once every four years. Participation means paying attention to what our elected leaders are doing at all times, not just when political ads appear in our mailboxes or on television while we’re watching college football or during a break on Dancing with the Stars or Eli Stone or Desperate Housewives.

If we, as a people, learn anything at all from the election process over the last two years and the collapse of Wall Street and our financial markets it’s that it’s incumbent on all of us to pay attention to what our elected leaders do in Washington every single day–so that we are informed and can make informed decisions about whether he said this or she said that or he voted for this or against that on the next election day; but more importantly, so that we can respond and participate and give immediate feedback to our elected leaders on the jobs they are doing and the direction they are taking our country.

If our employees in our businesses are slacking off when they should be taking care of our clients, we’re not going to wait until an annual review before we let them know, right? We’re going to deal with the situation immediately. So the same should be the case in Washington. If our elected leaders vote in a way that we disagree with on important legislation that affects our businesses and livelihoods, why should we wait until the next election to let them know our displeasure? Or for that matter, why should we wait to tell them that they are doing a good job?

Congress has been the mouse in charge of the cheese for too long. It’s time to personally reclaim our responsibility to participate as citizens of the United States.

Barack Obama will need a great deal of help and support to succeed as President of the United States. He is the first President in our nation’s history that will inherit not only an economy in deep recession with a deficit that has long since spiraled out of control, but he will also inherit two very difficult wars. As a relative newcomer on the political stage, it is possible that Obama will be tested by our adversaries as Joe Biden has suggested. Now, more than ever, the American people need to come together in support of our government as we face the challenges before us as a united people and as change is made. America voted for change, but it is no secret that change never comes easily or without a price. Americans turned out for Barack Obama on election day. Now Americans need to stay engaged as there is a lot of work to be done.

Over the next several weeks, Obama will put his cabinet together and he is all but ready to announce who his Chief of Staff will be. To ride the wave of enthusiasm and hope that Barack Obama has created, he will need to begin to make good on his biggest promise to reach out to Republicans and Independents in Government and build a government for all Americans and end partisan politics and business as usual in Washington. George Bush ran for office on that promise in 2000 and he failed miserably. As Barack Obama builds his cabinet, he must make good on his promise to be a uniter. It all starts at the top. By Obama’s cabinet choices we will soon learn if indeed the Hope that Obama promised during his campaign was indeed intended for all of us.

Thanks for reading.

-Matthew S. Urdan

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