Yay for voting!

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

As I watched my ballot (paper) slide face down into the voting machine today, I felt a mix of excitement, anxiety, and perhaps hope (I think some of Obama's rainbows got to me).

I'm having little moments of terror that I could have possibly filled in the wrong bubble -- like back in my days of organic chemistry when I wasn't sure that I'd drawn the right molecule. In that case, I typically hadn't. In this case, I'm 99% sure I cast my ballot for Barack Obama (and against repealing the income tax in MA, for decriminalizing possession of small amounts of pot, and for banning dog racing in MA).

Perhaps this is an inappropriate time to voice this opinion, but with voting behind me I can't help but reflect on how I used to like John McCain. His title of "Maverick," which is a joke now, used to be well deserved. As The Economist pointed out, there is quite a difference between Senator McCain and Candidate McCain.

If John McCain loses today, he loses because he tried his hand at Roveian politics. Incredibly and inspiringly, this method seems to have failed after two elections of success. But perhaps that's because no one, not even those "Joe Six-packs" in the "fly-over states," ever believed McCain to be more than a man working too hard to pour himself into an ill fitting mold. He loses because he took some terribly cynical aide's advice that he should exploit Barack Obama's middle name and stir up a little bit of racism in a country that is already hurting on so many other fronts. He loses because he listened to those same cynics when he picked a VP that fit a narrative better than a job description.

Barack Obama is an exceptional democratic candidate, had McCain done things differently I'm not convinced that the outcome would be much different. I would, however, feel much better about him returning to the role of Senator McCain.