So my candidate won the presidency on Tuesday.  That was nice, and I think we have a good chance of seeing some positive change from the status quo that has helped us reach a miserable economy.  I hope, along with many others of both parties that the negativity will stop and that this country can get back on track.

I’m not holding my breath about the negativity thing, though.  Because it’s still alive and well.

But a few thoughts come to mind about the election and the campaign and their aftermath, and I figured I’d share them while I can still make reasonable use of the little “Election 2008” category.

1. THE DREAM
As expected, much has been made of election of Barrack Obama and the famous “I Have a Dream” speech by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1963.  Many feel that the fact that Obama was elected to the office of president is a clear indication that King’s dream has been fully realized.

Well, that depends on how you look at it.  And how you voted.

I have a friend (who happens to have been a McCain supporter) who decided to play a nasty little trick on some of his co-workers who were dedicated Obama supporters:  he went to a political website, copied all of McCain’s platform statements, pasted them over Obama’s statements and printed out a page that showed Obama and a list of the points.  He then showed it to some of these Obama supporters, most of whom, he said, were black, and asked if, after reading all of these statements, they were sure that they were still behind Obama.

Each of them, he said, read the paper, (though he added that some spent far less time actually reading what was there than others) and said that Obama was absolutely their guy.

This little experiment, he says, is proof that there were plenty of people who supported Obama solely because of his race, since what he stood for seemed to have absolutely no bearing on their motivation to vote.  If, after all, a Republican’s platforms can be substituted on a Democrat’s one-sheet and it make no difference, someone clearly isn’t paying attention.

If you voted for Obama because he was black, you didn’t help King’s dream come true.  You actually did exactly the opposite:  you perpetuated the very same racism that King spent his life fighting to begin with, because you chose the color of Obama’s skin over all else.

But there were many of us who voted for Obama because of his standing on the issues.  We looked at the issues first, not the candidates who embraced them.  We decided where we stood first, then sought candidates who happened to be in the same place.

There were many of us who voted for Obama despite the fact that he is biracial, looks like a black man, and identifies himself as an African American.  In short, we selected him because his views matched ours, not because of his appearance.  I would go so far as to say that his race played absolutely no role in our vote at all, to the point that some of us aren’t even interested in the furor over his race.

It doesn’t matter to us that Obama is black, or biracial, or African American, or whatever else you want to call him.  It isn’t an issue.

That is what King’s dream was all about.  And that is how it always should have been, no matter what color you happen to be.

2. LITTLE REMINDERS
Politicos and soap fans have something in common:  they love silly little nicknames.

Take the gay couple on CBS’s As the World Turns.  The characters Luke and Noah are referred to as “Nuke” by their over-exuberant fans.  Some might say that the idea of a gay couple is “nuking” the show.

Take a president who uses the initial of his middle name to help distinguish himself from his father and who happens to be from Texas.  Make him a Republican, and that’s all a Democrat needs:  Bush is now “Dubya.”

For Obama, Republicans are getting their revenge with his initials.  Instead of coming up with some kind of nickname, they refer to the 44th president as BHO, a hopeful reminder that the middle name, Hussein, happens to be the same name as Iraq’s former leader.  Obama, therefore, must be an enemy.  It’s not even guilt by association, because there isn’t any association.  But the name’s the same, and so everything else — including any potential ulterior motives they hope you’ll start wondering about — must be, too.

Some of us hope that for the middle class, BHO will end up being our BFF.  Just sayin’.

3. LOOKING AHEAD
Tuesday night, people were already posting blogs about “Palin 2012.”  No, that wasn’t supposed to be funny, but if you’re snickering, I can certainly understand.

A guy I went to school with saw me on Facebook earlier this evening and commented on my blog.  He’s a longtime Republican, so he’s naturally not on the same page with me in this particular election; too bad he didn’t stumble upon me in 2004…chances are he’d have liked the blog a lot more.

Anyway, he said that Palin was too controlled by McCain’s people.  I’ve heard others say this, too.  Palin, supposedly the one person who has her finger always on the nuclear — or is it “nucular”? — button ahead of Bush himself, which is only a slight relief, and who tried real hard to portray herself as a Maverick like her running mate?

Controlled?  What kind of maverick is that?

Then again, some are asking the same question about McCain’s adoption of that word.

In any case, the people have spoken.  Hopefully both sides of the fence will not only listen, they’ll get to doing something about it.