What vs. Who

Here's a simple statement of fact which the TeeVee talking heads just refuse to accept.

The 2008 election is over.

We know what we want. We've decided. This is far more important than whose name goes on the White House door next winter.

Barring assassination or a military coup the next President will either by Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton. Both are in general agreement on principles, and on policy. Each has their own strengths and weaknesses, and while most expect Obama could win bigger than Clinton, their victory is baked into the system.

This is not just a rejection of George W. Bush, which is what a lot of Republicans are trying to claim. This is a complete rejection of the Republican Party, the party of Nixon, Reagan, Bush and McCain, the party of Limbaugh and Dobson, of Larry Kudlow and Grover Norquist, the party of warrantless wiretaps, of Katrina, of tax cuts for the rich, of eternal war, of limitless deficits.

This is the message sent by every primary. This is the message being sent by fundraising. Democrats are going to the polls in higher numbers than Republicans almost everywhere. The exceptions are Arizona and the Deep South. That's Goldwater country, Strom Thurmond territory. That's as low as the Republican Party can really go and still claim to exist. If they win there they have a base. Lose there and they're Whigs.

The thesis of the next several years is already set. It's shared sacrifice, an Internet thesis in which power flows from the bottom. Internet values like transparency and consensus reign. This is not yet a bumper sticker -- that's still to come. Nor is it yet embodied in a one-liner. That too is to come. But that's how Americans feel, by overwhelming margins. (Cartoon copyright 2005 Copley News Service.)

It's as obvious as the results out of Pakistan. We are tired of war. We are tired of being scared. We are tired of being set against one another. We are tired of the gasbags on CNN and CNBC, on Fox and MSNBC. We're sick and tired of the bullshit.

We don't yet know what an Obama or Clinton Administration might mean but, you know what? It doesn't matter. It will be different. Right now that looks good enough.

Of the two, I prefer Obama, because I think he can win by more, and that's important. A 51-49 split won't effect change. Only a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate and an immense majority in the House is really going to get the job done. Certainly there are people in both Houses, nominal Democrats, who can act as an effective opposition with the Republicans and slow things down enough so we don't go down a new wormhole right away. But that's all the opposition we're willing to brook.

We want out of Iraq. We want a progressive tax system. We want preventive health care, and catastrophic health coverage, guaranteed. We want new jobs to do, big jobs. We want to believe in America again, as something other than the "Homeland." We're sick of the Homeland.

Most of all, we're tired of being scared. We're tired of being scared by our leaders, of our leaders, and by our media. Fear is exhausting, it ages you like nobody's business, it'll transform you from Obama to McCain faster than an impeachment inquiry. We're tired of it.

We're tired of the past. We know the future is scary, but we know it's time we faced it. Together. One nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Under God is fine, but don't tell me who his or her name must be for me to be an American, I'm sick of that as well.

The question before us is which of these two people can best harness this new energy and turn it into policies which can make some progress both at home and abroad. That's the only question.

John McCain, for all his strengths, is just a placeholder for all the ills of our time. He's got to die for the sins of George W. Bush and the party. The only point of interest regarding the Republicans is what might come out of the wreckage. Will it be, as it was with Democrats, an angry, sullen, fierce opposition, which we'll have to put down even more forcefully? Or will it be real reform? I'm guessing the former, because that's what history shows happens, and one lesson won't teach the rank-and-file of this party the necessary lesson. God, it took Democrats decades to figure that one out, the distance from George McGovern to Bill Clinton. Can Republicans do it any faster? I'd like to think so, for the country's sake, because one-party rule is inevitably corrupt, but that's not up to me.

So the time has come to turn away from the horserace, to look reality square in the eye again, and ask ourselves, each one of us, what we can do for our country, and our planet?

Those are the only real questions left.