Yes, I Did

I was an undecided voter, the one you may have read about on other blogs in terms that were, at the best, ungracious, and at worst, deeply wounding.

I was not undecided because there wasn't a vast difference -- I was undecided because neither candidate or political party comes close to being a comfortable fit for me. Like many other voters who may identify themselves with one party or another, I have never given up my inclination to deeply listen, to thoughtfully contemplate, or to do a gut-check at the last minute.

Some folks picked a side and stuck with it, and became fairly idiotic in their fervor -- and that goes for both sides. It was as if, once decided, all listening stopped except for the things that made taking swipes something of a national pasttime.

To my friends and family who supported Barack Obama: Wear this victory with grace, and become the change you have been desperately hoping for. I have admired your passion, if not always your expressions of it, and understand that there were those -- like me -- who stepped away from my party of choice not because we are leaving it, but because we want it restored in a way that can make us proud again. We voted with you because we wanted to send a message that the dog we had in this fight -- the beginning of a return to center -- was abandoned. I'm not celebrating with you so much as I am hoping that, in time, more right things will happen than wrong things.

To my friends and family who supported John McCain: I was deeply disappointed that the candidate I initially supported with a sense of excitement was hijacked, and my choice was not the sound of me turning my back on the party. I still proudly call myself a Republican, and I am hopeful that the message that was sent yesterday is that my party cannot ignore the center anymore.

I do hope that, in light of the apparent failure of Prop 8 in California, my Democrat friends will quit blaming every backwards-thinking legislation on the Republicans, and acknowledge finally that there is irony within your own party. It's every bit as ironic as this Republican's fervent anti-death penalty stance, and her support of the rights of all human beings to choose the partners of their heart with whom to share a life (and legal decisions), and to provide homes for otherwise unwanted children. Anyway, let's just put the "paid" to close-mindedness being the province of the Republican party, okay?

If you have not read John McCain's concession speech, now would be a good time. In it I sense his own personal regret for not sticking to his original ideals, but there is, in those words, a man whom I would have been proud to call President.

In a conversation with my father this morning, he said quite poignantly, that he's been on the losing side of many an election, and this was likely his last. As stringent as his support was for Senator McCain, he knows things change, and he's first and foremost an American who wishes no ill to any elected leader of this country, and he is hopeful that the country will recover from her deep wounds. It is his deepest fear that the security he constructed for his family might be eviscerated --along with love and grace, it's his legacy to us and no government should wind up the chief beneficiary of his hard work.

Anyway, that's all I have to say on the subject. I'm not dancing in the street, but I'm not cowering in a corner either.