Election Commentary

Now that our period of national insanity is over, it being the day AFTER the election, the rest of the world can stop holding its breath and resume its various wars and other crises. Already I’m hearing reports of hostilities flaring up between Israel and Hamas. Or is it just that the press itself puts everything else going on in the world on the news back burner whenever something is going on here that they want to dwell on? Could it be that Israel and Hamas have been “at it” against each other this whole time and now they’ve been judged to merit news coverage?

I noticed a few things from the election results. First, the excessively emotional reaction to Obama’s election is understandable, especially due to the fact that he is the first African-American to become our president. But I’m hoping that this near-delirium on the part of some of Obama’s supporters abates some during the next few weeks. Otherwise, it’s going to start creeping me out. Hey, I voted for the guy too, but enough is enough. Let's all celebrate, but eventually realize that we elected a president, not an idol.

The people of the state of Alaska, who voted Sarah Palin into power as their governor, decided to reelect convicted felon senator Ted Stevens. Hmmm, maybe we should get on board with that Alaskan independence movement after all… [11-23-08 note: when this was written, Stevens led in the vote count, but eventually lost the final tally]

Comedian, political commentator, and author Al Franken, at this writing, appears to be less than 800 votes behind incumbent Norm Coleman in the Minnesota Senate race, with almost all votes counted. I expect a recount, of course. It appeared that a few of those who were initially supporting independent candidate Dean Barkely decided to vote for Coleman. I would like to see Franken up there in the Senate, to be sure, but I also recognize that Coleman was a pretty decent senator (for a Republican), although I felt he should have shown a little more independence from the Bush administration than he did. Coleman strikes me (I could be dead wrong, of course) as one of those who would be willing to work across the aisle with the Democrats on various bills.

I believe that, with a more liberal face in the White House beginning on January 20, 2009, the way will finally be clear for the more liberal Supreme Court justices to retire, knowing that their replacements won’t be right-wing ideologues vested by conservative think tanks. John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and David Souter are all in line for retirement, probably in that order. I wonder if Antonin Scalia will ever retire. Probably not. Justice Anthony Kennedy is also getting along in years, but he has so much power as the swing vote in most of their close decisions that he may want to stay on the bench a little longer. For one of Obama’s future court nominations, I know a New Jersey law school professor who is highly respected by his peers for his scholarly approach to the law as well as being simply one of the most compassionate and engaging people I have ever had the privilege to know (and grow up with). I think he would be a perfect fit for the Supreme Court. But I’m sure the country is full of other suitable prospects as well. It should be interesting to see how events unfold in this area during the next few months. I expect Justice Stevens to announce his retirement soon after Obama is sworn in.

I’m looking forward to this new president being more proactive in the area of scientific research. In particular, I’m referring to the area of stem-cell research that holds so much promise and which has been unnecessarily stymied by the current president. Our new president should be more sympathetic to the efforts being made slow down global warming. I’m also wondering whether or not Obama will finally be the president who sets in motion, with the backing of congress, a viable space exploration program that finally brings us back to the Moon, and possibly takes us to Mars.

It doesn’t look as if the Senate will have enough votes (60) to prevent opposition filibusters. I’m not sure that this isn’t a blessing of sorts. The House of Representatives pretty much does everything by simple majority vote. The Senate is the one recognized place in our national government where a minority party can have some influence on the political process, and I think that can be a good thing. After all, the Senate Democrats were able to exert some influence when they were the opposition party under a Republican president. But expect the Republicans to try to “pay back” the Democrats for holding up a small handful of Bush high court nominees by attempting judicial filibusters themselves. If they try to do this, though, the Dems themselves (thanks to previous GOP Senate majority leader Bill Frist) have the “nuclear option” that they can in turn exercise to bypass any filibusters of Obama's future nominees.

I'm a bit concerned in the area of foreign policy with the incoming administration. Although I believe the era of ostracizing and shunning entire nations because we see them as adversaries is soon to be behind us, there is another serious concern. Both Obama and Biden have expressed a willingness to deepen the American involvement in Afghanistan against not only Al-Qaeda, but also against the indigenous political-military movement Taliban, which has enormous popular support in large areas in southeastern Afghanistan and western Pakistan. But maybe reason will prevail and we'll also begin to talk with the Taliban who, although they did give sanctuary to Al-Qaeda and allied with them for their own military advantage in their own civil war, did not play a direct role in the 9/11 attacks on our country.

So there is plenty of excitement ahead for people like me who think that the C-Span channels are “tops”. I applaud all of those who ran for office in this election, both the winners and the defeated. It takes a lot of guts to get out there in public and put your reputation on the line like that. I wish the best for all of them in their lives, although I’m grateful that some of them won’t be in political office with the police powers of the state at their disposal.