paradigm

Last night we experienced a significant political realignment. This will rumble through society from now until January 20, and well beyond... and it will be a long time until any of us know what it really means.

In Barack Obama, I see a charismatic man who has defied odds throughout his political career. Things break his way in part because he refuses to believe otherwise. If he can convey his optimism to America, if he really can reach across different colors and classes and beliefs... if he can defy all the rigid boxes of modern American politics, all the special interests and ambitious advisors who would tug him every which way... great things could happen. Certainly, it must be an improvement over the past eight years; after eight years of an infamously dysfunctional administration, how could it be otherwise?

Some presumably fear change. How deep into the abyss must we plunge to open those eyes?

One of Obama's greatest strengths is his grounding in constitutional law, expounded on at length in one of his books. An essential skill, because part of the problem is that we've broken loose from the moorings set by the founding fathers... imperfect as they were, and even after more than two centuries of a changing world, those famous and powerful experiments in democracy continue to define us as a people. We must not forget, in fact we must re-learn. In a time when most accumulate a chaos of unrelated beliefs similar to those held by their peer group, molded by marketing campaigns and special interests... this is one path back to a core set of beliefs upon which to base important decisions.

For a little over two months this will be a nation, a world, in transition. Unlike Obama, many of us on the "down-ticket" part of the ballot don't need to wait. We can do our little incremental bits to change the world now, or at least within days. And I'm honored to have been a winner on that same paradigm-shifting day, one which will go down in the history books as a day of profound change.