A New Era

Last night was interesting.  It's nice that we as a country finally elected a black president.  It's very important to me that we elected him not because he was black, but because he was the better candidate.

I had a very interesting conversation with one of my co-workers, a black man from Mississippi.  He told me he had been sure that a black man would never be president within his lifetime.  He's younger than I am.  This was shocking to me.  I had always believed that successful minority candidates for POTUS were just a matter of time, and assumed that everyone else felt the same.  Apparently not.  That changed last night.

Obama has a lot on his plate though.  If nothing else, he's going to have to pay off the Federal credit card debt that GWB has been running up for the last 8 years.  That's going to make him very unpopular, as he's forced to raise taxes during what may be a pretty nasty recession.  This is not a recipe for a popular or well-regarded administration.  He is poised to follow in Herbert Hoover's footsteps, and I think he'd rather avoid that.

Another scary thing is the Democratic ownership of 2 branches of government.  With the executive and legislative branches "blue" the Dems will be able to push through a lot of pet projects, many of which may not be in the country's best interests.  At least the GOP has retained enough seats to filibuster, which should keep things from getting too ridiculous.  

But most importantly, that village in Texas gets its idiot back.