An Historic Moment

As I write this column we are exactly one week away from a potentially historical election day. America has been fortunate throughout our brief history in that when times have been toughest and we were most in need of great leadership, we have gotten it, with the aid of the voters. It is arguably, more than any other single factor, what has allowed our great experiment in democracy to succeed for as long as it has.

When we were getting the whole thing started we got George Washington, who basically invented the office of the president and set the precedent for the next 42 men to follow, some of course have followed his model better than others. When the nation was in danger of splintering into two, Abraham Lincoln appeared, as a mostly untested Senator from Illinois I might add, and while hugely unpopular among many at the time due to the war, is credited with keeping the Union together. When we faced economic depression and the threat of global fascism and totalitarian regimes taking over the developed world, we got Franklin Roosevelt, who kept us together long enough so that we could emerge from the Depression and the War a stronger and more unified nation. When we were facing economic recession, a loss of moral standing in the world and a crisis of confidence at home, we got Ronald Reagan, the Great Communicator, who guided us back from the brink of despair.

And here we stand today in 2008, a nation beaten and battered from 8 years of possibly the most inept and dangerous rule this great nation has yet endured. We are a military power that has been stretched to the brink, a global power that has seen her stature greatly diminish in the eyes of the free world that once looked to her as a shining light, and we have an economy and a social fabric that is in need of some serious mending. And once again, we have an individual who provides the hope that his leadership will allow us to keep it together long enough so that we can work as a people to solve our many problems and return to a greatness that we all long for, regardless of party preference or other societal factors that may separate us on the surface.

The anti-Obamaites among us like to point out that he is untested, and some go so far as to claim to be scared by him, although it’s not clear to me how he is any more untested or inspiring of fear than say, George W. Bush or John F. Kennedy was when they were elected. They like to claim that Obama is more of a celebrity than a serious leader, and that those of us that support him have drunk the Kool-Aid. I’ll leave alone the racial aspect of talking about a black guy and Kool-Aid, but their point is that we are following the Pied Piper off the bridge.

Of course only time will tell, will Obama be the great leader and inspiring figure as so many of us believe he will, and will he be able to rule effectively from the center and rein in a likely strongly Democratic Congress, who will no doubt want to exact a measure of revenge after having to deal with President Bush for the last four Congresses. Will the Democratic party of the Obama era become the Jacobins of the early 21st century, the group that took power after the French Revolution and basically destroyed itself through extreme policies and enacting repression over their enemies.

These questions will be answered over the next few years, but certainly if history is any guide, and it often is, we are in for a special time in our national narrative, a time that may very well be defined by creative problem solving, inspiring leadership, and a reunification of an often fractured society. This is the hope that Mr. Obama provides and why I will be casting a vote with excitement for a man who could go down as one of our nation’s great historical figures, alongside Presidents Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Reagan. If not, we may like the French in the late 18th century get a decade of heads rolling and retribution, with a new Napoleon at the end of it all. But I am an optimistic American, so my money is on the former scenario, and if the American people summon the will to do the work that is needed, I believe that we can emerge from this dark period stronger and more united than ever before.