Into the depths of my mind...

Two days have passed, and of course the election furor is still high.  We have an African American president elect.  There's a feeling of change in the air.  Things are gonna be different. 

A friend of mine last night made an interesting statement.

"He's either going to be one of the best presidents we've ever had, or one of the worst."

When we pressed him as to what he meant, his stance was simple. 

"Obama isn't going to do anything half planned, half assed or half way.  He is the candidate of change.  He has a plan, and he's going to move forward with it, with the support and backing of the senate and house.  Will it work?  I hope so.  Hell, I voted for him because I believe it will work. But history isn't going to be forgiving if it doesn't.  He won't be one of those presidents that gets lost in the shuffle."

I have to agree.  I hope what he does will work, and if it does, and he can make the changes and move our country forward, in 30 years, he'll be remembered as this generations JFK or FDR.  If it doesn't work and everything goes to hell in a handbasket - even if it isn't his fault - history will paint him as this generations Herbert Hoover or Franklin Pierce.

Alot of people are happy, hopeful, joyus, estatic...hell name a positive adjective, and there are people feeling that now.  Me, not so much.  I remember when Reagan was elected and how happy and hopeful people were, and I remember  noticing just a couple years after he was out of office how urban blight had consumed neighborhoods I had grown up in, as a middle class kid in the urban midwest.

Reagan, who was heralded as the man to fix America left a legacy we all have to live with.  Bush the elder, Bush the younger, Iran, Iraq, the Mideast, tentions in former Eastern Bloc countries that are supposed to be our allies, a negative perception of the US as a bunch of gun hungry war mongering cowboys.

I listen to my Obama supporting friends (and just to clear myself, I too voted Obama) and read blogs and see a wave of optimism and happiness, and I worry that we're putting too much faith in him before he even takes office.  Over the last two days, the Dow Jones has lost over 500 points.  The economy is still grim, and he has 10 weeks before he takes the oath.  How long before he can get anything moving; any change?  It won't be the first day.  If we're lucky, something will happen in the first hundred days.

Stuart Rothenberg is the editor and publisher of The Rothenberg Political Report, a non-partisan newsletter that reports on and analyzes the United States current political developments. He noted that Democrats' expectations of our new president-elect are running high.  "They don't think he's merely going to be president," Rothenberg said. "They think he's been elected savior."

That's a bit much to lay at Obama's feet, and unfortunatly, from my perspective it  rings true.  Is it a response to the painting of GeeDub as the anti-christ?  Is it a reaction to the hopelessness seen in this current crisis?  Is it an adverse flip on the Reagan era polcies that have dominated the American landscape for most of the last 28 years?

In '88 I went into the military and voted for Bush the elder.
In '92 I came back and saw the mess this country was in and voted for Perot.
In '96 voted for Clinton for lack of a better candidate.  If Perot hadn't fallen off the deep end, I might have voted him again.
In 2K, I voted Nader.  Gore had my home state locked up in the polls. so I voted Green just to send a message to the big two that they were out of touch.
In '04 I voted Kerry, not because i was voting for Kerry, but because I was voting against Bush.

Welcome to 2008.  The next four years are gonna be one hell of a ride.