Dear President-Elect Obama,

Congratulations on being named the next president of the United States. Yours was a well-run campaign, aided by the help of countless passionate supporters. You successfully captured the heart of the American people, currently so eager for the change and hope that they believe you can bring. You have already brought about one change: you will go down in history books as our first African-American president. It is yet to be seen what other changes will come with an Obama administration.

To that end, in spite of a long campaign in which you fought hard to reach the White House, the real challenge will begin in January when you take office. You have a healthy ego right now; this is understandable given your incredible victory. But despite becoming (arguably) the most powerful man in the world, yours is a position that requires the humility of service. You will be the ultimate representative; not representing a district or a state, but representing and serving an entire nation. With great power comes great responsibility, and you have a responsibility not only to your supporters and those of like minds, but also to the (nearly) half of the country that was not convinced. There are blue skies over my home state and yours, but a great part of this nation remains bathed in red.

When asked the seemingly benign question, "What does this election mean to you?" I have trouble giving an uplifting answer. I'm sure a lot of voters (53?) are able to use the words of Obama himself to respond, saying that it means "change we can believe in" or that it represents hope.

The fact that this election is historic is not lost on me. That our next president could be someone who in the not so distant American past would not have been able to vote demonstrates huge strides in seeing all men as truly created equal, in terms of race. That is an ideological victory not to be overlooked. And yet, when judging a man not by his race but by the content of his politics, there are so many other ideological issues that, if triumphant at today's polls, I cannot view as victorious. My lack of support for Obama does not mean that I do not want change; in fact, there are many things that I would like to see changed in this country very much. I want to even hold onto hope that the next president will bring these changes to the White House. But "change I can believe in" is not, quite frankly, what this election means to me.

In effort to get a more positive response to report on (and blogging ideas), I decided to ask my husband his thoughts on what this election means to him. This is, after all, the man who answered the question (posed by one of my seventh grade students) "Are you Republican or Democrat?" with a diplomatic, "I serve my country and my commander-in-chief, regardless of political party." He thoughtfully responded to my question by saying that for him the issue in this election has been one of who would do the least damage to the country. He says that the American people don't want to be at war anymore, and he can't say that he blames them - my husband has served two overseas tours, one in Iraq - but that in the process of desiring that change, he fears that we are crippling ourselves, robbing ourselves, blinding ourselves. His vote represents his desire to hold on to some of the rights that came with the founding of this country - earned prosperity, guns, individualism.

I too fear that we have blinded ourselves. America wants change, and it is clear that we are willing to overlook quite a bit in the name of that change. We are willing to overlook inexperience, radical ties, inconsistent positions, blatant media bias, unrealistic idealism, unprecedented campaign funds and spending, and the like (all issues independent of party platform positions themselves) for the Messiah, the One who says the things we want to hear. It is not unlike how people felt in the wake of the stock market crash of 1929; it was inevitable that Herbert Hoover and his party would not be welcome in the White House - although a recent History Channel program has given me the impression that history has given the man more of a bad rap than he deserves.

But there is still hope, even for Republicans like me. Obama will be faced with the reality of domestic and international issues currently challenging our nation when he takes the oath of office. He will have to adjust to the challenges, and not all of Obama's policies that I take issue with will come to fruition. We are fortunate to live in a democratic country where I have a voice and will again have a voice in four years, because we live free of dictators and despots. I have faith and hope that my opinion still matters.

Go figure - even for me, this election does come down to hope.

As Citizen Voices Bloggers, we agreed to appear on These Days periodically, as part of the job description. For this week's segment I was "encouraged" to go out into the community (my neighbors, co-workers, etc,) to find out how people were feeling about the presidential race, take an informal poll, and report my findings as part of the Wednesday morning show.

Asking people you know about their political beliefs is kind of like asking them about their sex life.  It can feel invasive, and being a private person myself, (at least I was before I got this blogging gig,) and since my neighbors and I have maintained a respectful avoidance of this subject... them with their McCain/Palin signs and me with my Obama/Biden signs, I didn't want to scratch the illusion of tolerance by actually talking to them.  So I did the only reasonable thing... I coped out.

In the spirit of non-scientific inquiry, I got in my car and drove as far away from my neighbors as I could, looking for random victims. I sampled opinions at the community gym, (where both TV's are usually tuned to Fox), Farmer's Market, Dog Beach, a hair salon, and a political forum.  I sent emails to friends, colleagues, and relatives.   Some of my face-to-face contacts at first declined to answer my questions, but when I said "okay", and started to walk away, they usually followed me to tell me what they thought anyway.

The first day of polling was not good news. I encountered a large number of people who had (1) not registered, (2) not paid attention, (3) said they would ask other people or their church how to vote, (4) didn't know anything about the issues. I heard excuses like "I have kids, I have to work, I don't have time to read the paper."   Seems like raising kids might be one of the premier reasons to care about who will run this country in the coming years.

I often overlook local election issues in favor of presidential races and state propositions - and my guess is, many people do the same. Despite receiving a "Voting Guide for Republicans" in the mail each election, I do my research on the issues rather than blindly fill out my ballot with the guide's recommendations. (I do wonder sometimes how many people use political party guides as command rather than recommendation. My recommendation is do a little research on an issue or don't vote on it at all.)

But researching local candidates is often tedious. Here in Vista, we are electing Vista Unified School District governing board members. And I do care - aside from working towards being a public school teacher myself, I may one day have children in the Vista Unified School District - but even after looking over candidate bios, I find few meaningful ways to distinguish the candidates.

Elizabeth Jaka is a "community volunteer" who seeks to "provide quality educational programs that will give our children the tools they need to succeed in the 21st century." Sounds great! Steve Lilly is a retired educator who wants to see "increased student learning" and assessments that "provide teachers and principals timely data on student performance" (what a concept - tests that indicate performance). Also noble! Angela Chunka wants to give students access to the latest technology and close the achievement gap - no argument here! Stephen Guffanti and Eileen Fernandez want to see students reading and writing English at grade level - a no-brainer, right?

When the table is running cold, a good craps player knows it, picks up his remaining chips and walks away.  If he has the stomach for it, he stops by the cage for his meager cash out. Then it's the long slog through slot machine hell, over to the elevator banks and back up to the suite in hopes that he can dream the nightmare away and start fresh tomorrow. McCain's long walk began at the end of last night's debate and a fresh tomorrow is about eighteen days away - back in the Senate.

McCain caught a little heat recently over his association with casino and gambling interests - I was glad to see the story fade away. Plenty of solid, productive, kind and resourceful people have a taste for games of chance. Fyodor Dostoevsky was a roulette man, his novella The Gambler is a great primer on the mysterious workings of the gambler's mindset.  Bill Gates and I are small stakes Texas Hold'em aficionados. Mark Twain knew his way around every diversion the riverboat casino had to offer. But John McCain is a craps man and craps players are a special breed.

Last night's presidential debate was decidedly... unenlightening and boring. Although the town hall format could have brought something new to the table, the game remained virtually unchanged. McCain had a tough job to do, as he entered the debate nine points down in the polls by some reports. Many Americans are now scrutinizing Obama more closely in light of the view that he is the more probable future president, and this is something McCain could have capitalized on - but he didn't, at least not as much as he could have. Both candidates presented their positions rather well, but this is old news - especially when Obama seemed to avoid directly answering questions in favor of steering the debate towards prepped talking points. Important issues came up, but the responses given could have been directly taken from campaign speeches. In what turned out to be a highly conventional debate, we heard the candidates reiterate their positions on health care, taxation, Iran, Russia, and energy. There remained much divergence and some agreement. The economy and current economic conditions were understandably a time-consuming focus.

But despite the need to address the economy in light of significant changes that have taken place since the last time the candidates faced off, I think Tom Brokaw could have made some more interesting decisions regarding question choices. When citizens, and not journalists, are given the opportunity to ask the questions, fascinating issues are bound to come up - and we can get a unique insight into our politicians' characters and lives. In this debate, however, if you agree with Obama's positions, you probably felt like Obama won; likewise, if you went into it a McCain fan, you more than likely believed him to be the winner (case in point: both the FoxNews on-screen poll following the debate and the Drudge Report online poll declared McCain the winner). Did it do anything for the undecideds? I've made up my mind, so I can't be certain, but my guess would be that it didn't do a whole lot in terms of issues.

But maybe the spotlight wasn't on the issues. Maybe the goal was to see the next president being, well, presidential - a goal both candidates succeeded in. Obama was comfortable, said things a lot of people want to hear, and presented himself as empathetic. But as McCain repeatedly brought up, it comes down to rhetoric versus record. So keeping that in mind, and in light of this rather promising debate format that failed to live up to my hopes, I've assembled a list of my own questions, specifically for Senator Obama. Some of these contain issues that I wish McCain had brought up, and some require more than a two-minute response, so poor Tom needs to stop looking at the timer.

Chicken dinner was the plan on Pa Olsen's Colorado farm in 1945 and he sent his mother-in-law out to do the dirty work. She grabbed young chicken Mike, got him by the neck, the ax swung and she botched the job. Like unlucky chickens everywhere, Mike went careering madly around the farm without his head. If a chicken with its head cut off can be lucky - Mike was. He somehow survived the decapitation with his brain stem in tact. Accused of being a hoaxer, Pa Olsen had his chicken oddity verified at the University of Utah and by the Guinness Book of World Records. Olsen then went on a whirl wind, barnstorming tour of the United States (joined by a two headed sheep and a few other barnyard freaks). Mike was fed through a syringe and by all accounts roosted and strutted like any other full headed chicken. Chicken Mike ran around the country for eighteen months before luck caught up with him and he choked on a corn kernel and passed into lore.

John McCain is just wrapping up the eighteenth month of his Presidential Campaign. Eighteen months of surprising new directions and unpredictable behavior have him challenging Chicken Mike's record for running around the country without a head. All of the foxes and the hens and the sheep and wolves in Washington quieted down this week as it looked like the Wall Street barnyard was about to go up in flames. These situations call for a line of bipartisan water buckets and calm assurance - not a headless chicken looking to bask in the glow.

Matthew Dowd, who led President Bush's campaign for reelection in 2004, recently told the New York Times that "The only things that are going to change the equation of the election are the four debates." This is due to the plethora of partisan and biased media sources that the public is confronted with every day. As Dowd pointed out, "The average person has 90 channels. They get all the dot-coms. They all get a newspaper. There is so much flow of information that they just begin to discount it all."

And for that, we can breathe a sigh of relief, although I fear that Dowd might give the average person too much credit in saying the media will be depreciated. But if the most influential factor in this election will be the candidates' own voices - through debates and interviews - then I hope the moderators and interviewers will break with the improprieties of the past several months and truly give both sides an even playing field.

Is it fair to label John McCain's presumptive presidential nomination as tantamount to Bush's third term in the White House?  I thought about this recently after seeing a bumper sticker proclaiming the message.  The McCain camp has also taken notice of this particular line of attack on their candidate's viability.

The matter interests me because if the senator from Illinois hopes to win his bid for the highest elected office, won't his political strategists and advisors need to understand what draws an undecided voter toward Senator McCain as much as away from him? 

The bumper sticker routine, I believe, simply won't work on voters already likely to vote for Senator Obama.  These slogans attempt to discourage the undecided, as well as those leaning toward McCain.  But does this particular insult work in that vein?   

The most obvious premise of the message taps into Bush's increasingly high disapproval ratings.  Since a majority of Americans have repudiated any support Mr. Bush gained before his last term in office, the thinking goes, extending his stay would be political failure.  This idea, however, "preaches to the choir" and probably won't serve to sway voters.

I hereby declare a week long moratorium on all political news that is dispersed through the Fourth and Fifth Estate; by this I mean newspapers, magazines, network and cable television, radio, streaming video, and blogs.  I command Arriana Huffington, Kos, Slate, et al, to go on a weeklong vacation, preferably where they can get some sun. Effective, immediately, Fox is banished off the air; in fact, they will be shut down indefinitely as punishment for crimes against truth.  Imagine, a week without the smarmy presence of Sean Hannity and his ever-changing cast of airheads. Gosh, we would be free from the nasally harangue of Greta and the bottom feeding antics of Nancy as well) All right...no John Stewart for me even though everyone knows he's just a comedy show...right?

 No Glen Beck, no Katie regurgitating manufactured "facts", no Stephen Colbert coddling cracker musicians, no foolish John McCain campaign videos, no using my campaign donations to counter his nonsense, no Paris Hilton videos, though I have to say you were the high point of the week, dear.