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http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/Davidow/57wrote:

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Well, the long wait was over after all. And it was thrilling to see the mix of people who gathered in Chicago to celebrate and to relish the excitement of that moment when it became clear that Barack Obama had beaten the odds and become the president elect.

Along with his astonishing mandate on election night, the special qualities that define him as a man, a husband and a father added a striking footnote to an already lustrous occasion. How many politicians have any of us encountered who could include their children's contribution to a victory by saying they deserved the puppy that would accompany the first family to the White House? Such a tribute coming from someone else would never have passed muster, but from Obama it was exactly what voters had come to see in him - - a man with hopes and dreams like their own, someone who cares passionately about his family, the country and the people in it - - the real deal.

But along with feelings of elation and the prospect of a new way forward, comes the reality that we are not out of the woods yet. There are disturbing signs that the old clichés and unabashed self interest among many in our society are gearing up to dampen hopes for a smooth transition to a new administration and real change. When Senator McCain claimed he was about "country first", he spoke from a narrow vantage point "full of sound and fury" but basically, "signifying nothing" that really applied to the broad spectrum of national needs. When all was said and done "country first" didn't mean looking at the nation as a whole - - finding new sources of industry and the jobs that would follow. Rather it relied mostly on the feel-good mantra of lower taxes.

Most surprising are continued Republican claims that Democrats have got it all wrong and that Obama in particular will put us on the road to socialism, that he and his supporters don't understand anything about capital markets and that we could end up looking a bit like, gasp, Sweden. But folks who rant about how it is the rich who create jobs and drive our financial engine can't seem to explain why we have fallen on such hard times, why joblessness has increased despite the transfer of enormous wealth to the already rich and why consumers who have run the limit of their credit-funded existence have had to pull back from holiday spending and travel. Why is no proof ever required when the argument is made that trickle-down is still the best policy?

Republicans operate in some rarified strata of the world pretending that sound economic policy derives from low taxes and a hands-off governing style. And they are unashamed that the states they won cut a red swath across the lower portion of the country where white voters still trump diversity and where defense funding and reliance on market forces overwhelm the broader interests of an ever-more-colorful national tapestry. A caller to Washington Journal claimed that Obama owed his victory to racial voting pockets of the country's brown and black populations. The white investment class had been neglected this time around, he said, though polling data doesn't support his premise.

But it is hard to disabuse people of their views no matter how history and conditions impugn their pre-conceived positions, or their failure to understand the struggles of ordinary folks stuck with pay-stub deductions and health-care costs that often leave them with few options to attain or increase wealth or to protect their families from unforeseen medical disasters. When one hears stories about families moving from houses to apartments to cars to the street because of medical bills it is hard to imagine that in our affluent society people can lose everything because of illness and that government is not prepared to protect them from financial annihilation. Surely national defense shouldn't just be about building war materiel and arming troops; it should include attending to human beings whose health care needs have left them an endangered species.

Still, further proof of the abyss that continues to exist between the neediest and the comfortable among us could be heard from a group of men at lunch the day after the election. Mostly retired, the group talked of nothing but how taxes would rise in an Obama administration. The strangest thing about their sad analysis of how we would all suffer is that these were men who belong to a country club, have good medical coverage, own nice homes, have nice cars, nice clothes and take exotic vacations.

No question that Obama has a hard road ahead of him. Things will go more smoothly however, if he can convince a majority of Americans to really put "country first" instead of narrow self interests and greed.

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FINDING A VOICE by Ann Davidow