Obama Wins

"It's time to see whether Obama will be Uncle Sam, or Uncle Tom"

-Ralph Nader (as he vanishes from the political landscape forever)

"I'm moving to Canada"
-Various misinformed Republicans who obviously think that Canada is for small government and less taxation

"We lost some of those moderate republicans, and we need to make sure they stay lost"

-Rush Limbaugh

"The reason conservatism didn't win was because conservatism wasn't even on the ballot"

-Rush Limbaugh

Mr Limbaugh's comments, are the exact reason that Obama won and McCain lost the election. Mr. Limbaugh would rather exclude anyone who doesn't agree with him (read: moderates) from the Republican party, and would prefer instead to fill his party of choice with firm right wingers and extremists.

Moderates are the "swing voters" if you exclude them, you lose. Simple. The fact that Mr. Limbaugh felt conservatism wasn't on the ballot is a little scary (Palin was on the bottom of the Republican ticket right?).

Did you see the crowd at the McCain concession speech? Old white people. Boos.

Did you see the crowd - 250,000 strong - at Obama's victory speech? Young, old, and in-between; black, white, asian, hispanic... everyone was there. Obama was inclusive, ran on hope, change, and opportunity; he appealed to the middle class, minorities, youth, and first time voters. First time voters, blacks, and youth - those typically apathetic about politics - voted overwhelmingly for Obama. This, I think was his greatest strength from the beginning: He got people interested in politics. That is why he won. (I can still hear Mr. Limbaugh laughing about Obama saying he was going to make politics "cool again." Eat your words, sir.)

Ballots counted, speeches over, President elected, it's time to get down to business. President-elect Obama will have high expectations thrust upon him to fix what is broken. He is suddenly the next leader of the free-world. It is time to take a good long look at the problems this nation, and this planet face, with new eyes, and try to chart a course.

Obama must work with his allies, and enemies both in congress and across the globe. He must be inclusive globally as he was with the American people. Americans sometimes forget, that we are part of this planet, and there are 5.7 billion other people and over 200 other countries. There can be no black and white, with us or against us, we must seriously consider the gray - the third or fourth options. As Obi-Wan Kenobi so eloquently states in Star Wars - Episode III: "Only a Sith deals in absolutes." We must all hope that President-elect Obama finds his inner Jedi and compels others to do so as well.

We've lived the Bush doctrine for 8 years, what now, will be the Obama doctrine, and the Obama legacy?

Mr. Limbaugh did say one thing that I agreed with though. "Thank you President-elect Obama for dispatching Hillary, at least we won't have her lurking around the White House again any time soon."