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W e e k l y   F e a t u r e   P a g e
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Of Politics and Pachyderms

A couple of old sayings come to mind this post-election morning. One refers to the scenario where we all collectively, if somewhat nervously, choose to ignore something that is glaringly obvious to all of us. That is known as “the elephant in the room”. The second is a throwback to the universally known King of Rock and Roll music, “Ladies and Gentlemen, Elvis has left the building”. Well, this morning, the announcement is, “Ladies and Gentlemen, the Elephant has left the building”. This particular elephant, of course, being the time-honored symbol of the GOP, which after an 8 year tenure, will no longer reside in the White House.

All through what was a grueling and hard fought campaign, reporters, pundits, and all the rest of us had to tiptoe through a minefield of “political correctness” traps whenever engaged in a political discussion. There’s that other “elephant”, the one we try to ignore. The President elect, Barack Obama, for the first time in our Nation’s history, is black. That’s a fact. And it’s a pretty big deal for him, and for us. Let’s face it, in our organization, we have a fairly common background profile. Most of us have rural, Mid-Michigan, agricultural roots. I guess you could say that I attended a segregated school. Never occurred to me at the time, and it certainly wasn’t anybody’s conscious decision, there really wasn’t anybody there to integrate with. We all learned the history of the Civil War and then never thought much about it until the Civil Rights movement of the ‘60’s. Depending on the paths taken, most of us were eventually exposed to other cultures in the service, workplace, or wherever, in the years that followed. That said, we are what we are, and yes, you could easily pick Barack Obama out at an MMOGTA meeting, were he to attend one. (He’d be the one with the Secret Service guys and the most powerful position in the Free World).

There, we, along with the rest of this great Nation, have gone through the big “reveal”, and we’re all still standing. One of the comments I heard throughout the campaign was, “I don’t want to vote for either one of them.” McCain was too old, Obama too black, Palin has too many kids, Biden’s too phony. Yup. None of them were perfect, but two of them won, and now it’s Wednesday. There won’t be a lot of satisfaction for you down the road if you spend the next 4 years waiting to say, “I told you so”. We’re all aboard the same ship, sailing some troubled waters, and paddling is more likely to get you ashore than bitching.

In a classy and sincere concession speech, McCain referred to his former opponent as the man who will be “my President”. We all tend to be a little parochial in our thinking, but I’d like to think that most of us have enough situational awareness to realize that our Country doesn’t look like it did when we grew up. That’s a fact. Our neighborhoods would look just as foreign to a lifelong resident of a big city as theirs would to us. It’s a big tent, there should be room enough for all of us.

It was indeed, an election of “firsts”, as we were destined to get either our first black President, or our first female Vice-President. I, for one, will be much happier when we stop keeping score of all that, leaving a little more time to rank them in terms of their views, abilities, and achievements. The pollsters results indicate that among black voters Obama received over 90% of their vote, so let’s be honest enough to admit that race plays a part, no matter who you are. What is perhaps more significant, is the fact that he garnered huge support among young and first time voters. Now there’s a demographic group that has a long term stake in how this all works out.

I wonder also if, on this Wednesday morning, Barack Obama feels a little like the young, back-up quarterback that gets called into the game in the 4th quarter, when his team is already down by 20 points and it’s starting to snow. It is the big chance he’s been waiting for, and the payoffs can be huge if he can turn it around, but it’s still a tough place to start. The voters turned down one hero, we can only hope they created another.

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