Post-Election Musings

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Nathan Shapiro, former Opinions Editor and Stony Brook University alumnus.

There should be an editorial forthcoming on the Indie about where I see the Republican party and my place as the loyal opposition to the Barack Obama presidency. But until it’s published, I wanted to share some thoughts on this election.

A New President is Exciting

Yes, it's true that I am disappointed Obama will be President of the United States and not John McCain. However, I am still excited about having a new president. It's not that I dislike George W. Bush and can't wait for him to be gone, but it's because having a new face in the office is always fresh and invigorating for the nation as a whole. (I don't know how I would've made it through the FDR years.)

Maybe it's because I am a dork for the U.S. Constitution, but I wonder how many people grasp the momentous transition about to take place. We take for granted our republican government, but we really shouldn't. Over the next 3 months the state electors will cast their votes, their votes will be counted by Congress and at the stroke of noon on January 20th, 2009, there will be a new President of the United States. Until our founders literally invented this system, most national governments came into being by force and death. And the same rang true long afterwards, to this very day.

I know there are many angry conservatives that are frustrated by how they were treated by the left over the last decade and are ready to get their revenge. The orders for the "Obama is Not My President" t-shirts are already pouring in. To a certain extent, they are right—turnaround is fair play. Expect to see a lot of it.

But for me, Barack Hussein Obama is my president, whether I like it or not. According to the Constitution that I love and hold dear, he has been elected to the presidency. I will show him the respect that his office commands.

The "Big Black Donkey" in the Room

Discussing the election with a friend of mine, she brought up the subject of race and this presidential election, calling it the “big black elephant in the room. (Considering the party identification, I think it’s proper to refer to it as a donkey instead of an elephant, but I digress.)

This is a momentous occasion for America. Our first president owned black slaves, and now our 44th president is a black man. Whether you supported Obama or not, this amazing fact cannot go unrecognized. It speaks to the greatness of our country, the ability to right its wrong and redefine itself by the liberty it professes.

While it is inevitable that some people voted for or against Obama because of the color of his skin, I hope and pray that a majority of people voted on the issues and not based on his race. There may be good intentions for wanting to elect a black person as president, especially among blacks, but I simply cannot wrap my rational mind around voting for a president because he is black. It’s just as misguided as voting against him because of race. For black Americans, I can understand the instinctual desire to have a president that “looks like me,” but on an intellectual basis it’s a terrible reason to vote for somebody.

When you say you’re voting for Obama because he is black, you’re also saying you’re not voting for McCain because he is white—which isn’t fair to McCain to be judged not worthy for the presidency on account of the color of his skin.

And if you vote for Obama out of the symbolism, but think his policies are misguided, you are actually doing the cause of racial equality a disservice. Imagine for a moment that Obama’s policies are so disastrous that he is considered a bad president. Has anything been gained by the first black president being unqualified and incapable for the office?

This may stem from my belief that, prior to Obama, the United States has been ready to accept a president of dark skin color for at least fifteen years, Obama simply happened to be the first candidate to come along able to pull it off.

So while the moment the nation chose to elect a black president is a milestone, I don’t think it’s as significant in the grand scheme of history. What the election represents is far more significant than the election in-and-of itself. It’s the massive social change that has occurred over the last 40 years that needs to be recognized and held up as a virtue, not the political act of Obama’s election.

Superficial Campaign Translating into Superficial Government?

Obama ran a great campaign, but I think it’s a stretch to say it was a campaign heavy on detail and specifics. He swept to victory on a superficial message of “hope” and “change.” I had hoped that, following the election, the focus would shift off these vapid campaign slogans towards tangible plans. But so far there is little indication of it.

Aside from his largely hallow, if sweepingly poetic, victory speech, his first acts as president-elect don’t instill confidence that things will be different. And I don’t just speak of his dodging of questions at his press conference.

It seems the first official act has been turning his campaign site into an actual government website seriously titled Change.Gov. It seems that his propagandist slogans are going to be with us as a fixture of his politics permanently.

I also think it’s pretty telling that Obama, who promised a post-partisan governance, has made his campaign literature into a government website (with criticisms of John McCain’s proposals still included). What else from his campaign tactics will seep into his White House style?

Well, it seems his style of marketing himself will remain intact. Obama’s campaign felt sort of like a marketing pitch for a commercial product. From the hundreds of thousands of dollars dedicated to “sets” and “stages” to the fact that his campaign actually created a logo to mark his brand rather than the typical politicians use of their name.

This almost became an issue in the campaign when it looked like Obama was redesigning his own presidential seal, incorporated into his logo. The campaign backed off, seeing how egotistical and presumptuous it might seem for Obama to be unilaterally redesigning national symbols for his personal use.

Well it seems that, with the rigors and checks of a campaign behind him, Obama is at it again. Looking at pictures from his Friday press conference, the first thing that struck my eye was the sign upon his podium. It read, “Office of the President-Elect.” It’s style, design and color pattern was precisely like those employed by the Obama campaign and included the American eagle.

I like to pride myself on knowing a little bit about the American government, and I have never heard of an “Office of the President-Elect.” It’s definitely a title and designation of a person, governed by statutes that provide funding to his activities and by the Constitution, but never as something I've heard referred to as a governmental office. (Although it seems George Stephanopoulos used the title when signing letters in 1992 on behalf of Bill Clinton.)

But even if, in some sense, the office does exist, the Obama campaign is trying to create an impression of it as an office akin to the "Office of the President" that doesn't have a basis in history. I don’t think it’s proper for Obama to take this designation and unilaterally redefine its significance. Let alone do it using the design that was used by his campaign. It slaps on self-serving marketing that is undignified by the actual office he is about to enter.

And I certainly hope it stops by January 20, 2009.