Election day was rather unique for me this Presidential cycle; for the first time I managed to vote for the person who actually won the election. Of course, I’ll admit that this was only the second time I voted for a major party candidate - in 2004 I cast an ultimately fruitless vote for Kerry, but prior to that it was two votes for Perot and one for Nader.

Beth and I took Alex with us to the polling place yesterday morning, showed him the ballots, answered his questions. This is something that I’ve been doing over the last several elections. I want Alex to see voting as a privilege and a responsibility; a way of making his voice heard even if it is in the very small minority. Our precinct votes with these giant optical scanned forms which you fill out in the ludicrously small tables with tiny partitions between you and the other voters, so I wasn’t able to bring him “in the poll” so to speak, but he seemed pretty happy to be part of an historic election.

Well, as happy as he could be while he obsessed over being late for school (which he wasn’t by a long shot).

I thought about elections on the way into work today - I don’t really remember having deep political discussions with my parents or ever being to the polls, although I suppose I must have at some point. The first time I remember even thinking about an election was in 1980 - I remember walking out from my room in Seven Hills and asking my mother who won the election and having her hold up the Cleveland Plain Dealer to show me a giant picture of Ronald Reagan. I didn’t like Reagan. I don’t think she did either. Twenty eight years later…well, I have to stay I’m sticking with that assessment today.

I don’t particularly care for politics, and I don’t particularly fit into the Republican/Democrat cookie-cutter mold - hence the third party candidate votes in my past - but the last two elections have been so contentious it has been difficult not to take a side. Forget agreeing to disagree; many discussion I had in the run-up to both this election and the 2004 election have been filled with the type of arguments, attacks, and insinuations that I had only found in internet flame wars in the past.

In 2004, Beth was interviewed - along with many other Ohioans - in this segment by a German Public Radio correspondent (I was in San Diego during this week) about the then-upcoming election which was ultimately won by George W. Bush. It’s interesting to listen to it with the perspective of 4 years. (Of course, it’s fun trying to pick out the english underneath the german voice-over, but that just makes it a bit more challenging).

Here in 2008 Obama has won the presidency despite the frantic calls of the GOP warning of the imminent collapse of our entire country and way of life. I’ve received emails telling me that Obama is going to shred the bill of rights; I’ve been told that our personal freedoms are at stake; I’ve been told that I’m going to be working to support all sorts of welfare queens, crack heads, and other social deviants who will just be getting a handout by the incoming socialist administration.

The question I keep posing to these frantic cries is, quite simply, how? There is only so much a president can do - even allowing for the fact that the powers of the executive branch have been greatly expanded in the last 8 years. Many of the same people who are warning me of the dangers of Obama were the same people laughing at my concerns over Bush’s shredding of personal liberties over the course of his presidency. Then there’s the fact that so many prominent republicans either only reluctantly supported McCain or endorsed Obama.

So I’ll ignore all the hyperbole and handwringing from my right-leaning friends and take what I would consider to the the “sane” course and just wait and see exactly what happens come January. It’s probably not going to be as bad as the naysayers think, and it’s probably not going to be as good as the idealists hope.