The Voice of the People

The election is over, and I have to say, the political climate that surrounded this year's general election seemed to be the most hostile that I've seen in years, if ever.
So you'll excuse me for the delay in writing this week's column.  It takes me a while to figure out if there's any real way to write an unbiased article concerning the outcome of this year's election.
I have been a registered Republican since I registered to vote at the age of 18.  However, I have always voted for whom I felt was the best candidate, even if it meant taking the extra time to write in a candidate from another party.
That's right.  I'm a Republican, and I have voted for a Democrat in the past.  And an Independent.
And other third-party parties as well.
I was disappointed in the outcome of this year's Presidential election, but at the same time, I got over it.
I didn't resort to the hostility some had over the fact that their candidate didn't come out on top.
We have four more years of Barack Obama, people.
Like it or not, that's the way it is.
In the words of one of my former radio colleagues, "Bummer...deal with it."
Seriously, were some of you that convinced he didn't stand a chance at re-election?
We have not had a single-term President in office since George H.W. Bush lost his re-election bid in 1992 to  then-Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton.
That's going on twenty years now.
Prior to that, Jimmy Carter.
Two one-termers in 35 years.  You really have to do a bad job to not secure another term.
Or the people really have to despise you.
I prefer to see if Obama can work with the Congress he'll be faced with for the next four years.
Yes, it's bad right now.
But it could be a hell of a lot worse.
And I sure don't see anyone of the naysayers telling me they're moving to Canada making any effort to pack their bags.
Yes, we have a huge deficit in this nation's history.  But we dug our own grave years ago.  Someone had to dig us out.
To let Detroit's auto industry wither and die would have meant the loss of millions of jobs, directly AND indirectly.
Now the Big Three have learned their lesson and now run a leaner, meaner, tighter ship.
And Obama suffered the black eye from AIG's use of bailout money for executive perks.  He learned from it.
He could have pulled the troops out of the Middle East that George W. Bush put there.
And he didn't.
He wisely stayed the course until the strongest al-Qaeda leaders were killed or captured.  To do anything less would have meant the efforts after September 11th would have been in vain.
Obama has another four years to build a legacy.
He can do it.
We had a President who survived an impeachment trial, multiple sex scandals, a collapsed real estate development deal that sent people other than himself to jail, among other things.
But this man, a Democrat, was able to find a bi-partisan footing and reach across the table to his Republican colleagues and change this country for the better.
It didn't happen in four years.  It happened in eight years.
The hope for our future begins with the support we have for our country's leaders.
To those who disagree, I say this:
"Can you do better?"
Now I come back to another quote:
"If anybody's got a better idea, I'm all ears."
Yep, Ross Perot.
That said, I'M all ears.



NEXT WEEK:  Birthday Blues