A curious sense of peace, hope, and fear

I voted a few weeks ago. My county votes by mail entirely, so we don't cope with lines or have any sense of "going" to the polls. I have done my part, I have voted. I have given money to many of the candidates I support. Now, like millions of people in the world, I sit back and wait.

This is a strange sense of peace.

It is also a curious interregnum, bursting with hope and with fear. There is so much promise in the changing of leadership. There is potential--for good and for bad, for inspiration and for despair.

Some of my friends have described the event of the presidential election going to McCain/Palin as something akin to the end of the world, or of democracy as we know it. I hopefully disagree. I know that no matter how it turns out, millions of American citizens have become new voters, and that energy can move mountains, if we can harness it.

Let's not talk about candidates' persaonal lives

Can we talk about the elections and focus on the nation's issues, rather than the candidates' personal lives?

My mother liked to point out that despite his huge popularity, John Kennedy was not a great president. And his successor, LBJ, though well known as a master tactician, actually got a lot down. Civil Rights Act, EEOC, for example. I was always quick to dismiss Clinton's zipper problems. And if Bush had any zippper problems, I would dismiss those too (albeit more reluctantly).

I don't think the mother of an infant, especially one with Down Syndrome, should take on a job as grueling as campaigning for the second highest office in the land. But that is to cricitize Sarah Palin's record as a mother. When considering her for the #2 spot in our nation, I will look to her record as a mayor and a governor.