See you in 2010

So, McCain managed to maintain his deathgrip on an honorable defeat after all. The fact that the election turned out rather close overall was actually a pleasant surprise – it proves that we’re not as bad off as I thought. Per Bill Quick:

Think about it this way: if aging hack John McCain, unable to enthuse his own base, running after a disastrous eight years of a George W. Bush administration, in the face of an utterly hostile mainstream media, a collapsing economy, and the as-yet undetermined aftermath of an unpopular foreign war, can still be near or within the polling margin of error, this is not a liberal nation, or one panting for an Obama administration.

I’ll be drinking tonight in anticipation of a rough four years. It will not be pretty, and it certainly won’t be the salvation of the human race by a chosen savior, as this has been painted to be. Bear in mind we have just given yet more power to the political party that was almost single-handedly responsible for the financial crisis we currently face. We have given a group of fanatics who embrace ideals of wealth redistribution and “social equality” above basic human rights, and disregard entirely the Constitution on which the country was founded. We’ve almost certainly doomed the Supreme Court to a generation of activist liberal judiciating, which will cause untold problems for the future of our country. And at the helm of all this we’ve put down a man whose personal history lies somewhere between “shady” and “outright scandalous.”

Yes, I anticipate a lot of problems coming our way in the next four years, and future of conservatism in America will hinge on how we handle it. Hint: addressing it with soft-spoken “centrist” policy a la McCain will not get us anywhere. Gingrich’s failed Contract with America will not get us anywhere. This will require a true return to roots in the Republican party. And we will have the advantage of the Democrats showing their true colors in the next couple of years to give us a big boost in the 2010 congressional elections. So in the meantime, take heart, batten down the hatches and weather out the storm. We’re still free, mostly. See you at the polls in 2010.

As a side note… many of my friends are talking about how far we’ve come, electing a black man as president. And that’s indeed a great thing, and evidence that we’ve conquered a lot of the shadows of the past that haunt our nation. However, we elected a black man who is also an extreme leftist and fanatic. Regardless of his race, this is a tragedy, and leaves a nasty stain on what could have been a truly positive achievement.

To be clear: I don’t care one way or another what color a man’s skin is, and I feel that if you vote for or against anyone even partially because of their skin color that you are a despicable person and have lost all your credibility as a voter. Like Dr. King said, people are to be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. That judgment goes both ways, and as a nation, for the most part we already do that. The ghosts of racism have been tragically exploited this election, and if I never hear another person mention the subject again, I will be all the better for it.