A time to vote

It’s fun to commit to writing what you believe will be the outcome of an event that will happen in just a couple of weeks, with the anticipation that when you read it after the fact, you could have been right, or dead wrong. Of course I’m referring to the US election. Is there anything else currently going on? Yes, there all kinds of polls predicting the outcome but with what happened during the last two US elections I’m not ready to give them my full trust.
At first blush both candidates offer me what I want: change. I’m sure that I’m with 90% of the US population that is unhappy with how things have turned out with the departing administration. And change we are going to get. Either way it goes, this election is bound to be historical. Barack Obama would be the first African-American president and McCain would be the oldest president at the time of taking office, and his VP would be the first woman VP ever.

Digging further, both parties are taking a different approach to reach the minds of the American public. Obama appears to me to be running a campaign that seems more inclusive and with a more positive tone, more positive not only about his opponent but also about the future. McCain looks a little less controlled and making decisions based more on what would get him elected than on his vision for the future. His choice of running mate seemed to have been to attract the disenfranchised women that wanted Hilary Clinton on the ticket. His political tactics have become more and more negative and more about creating fear on his opponent to make himself the obvious choice if you don’t want to pay more taxes or become a socialist nation.

I have to admit that I’m not impressed with the same things that the majority in the country seems to be impressed with. That’s probably why my candidates have not won during the last two elections. Not only I am not looking for a candidate that speaks to me at my level, I’m looking for a candidate that sounds and is smarter than me. Cowboys and plumbers should continue to do their jobs, and if and when I need someone to tend to my cows or to fix my plumbing I would call on them. But for president, I want someone that inspires me, someone that has a world vision grander than what I could propose in my bathtub, someone that does some thinking before acting. To me, being a maverick is a negative qualification for a president, not a positive as its being portrayed.

McCain’s choice of VP, acclaimed as a great “maverick” decision, has been giving the campaign a dangerous turn which makes me feel even less comfortable with their definition of a “true American”. I’ve been to small town America and I’m sure there are very many great Americans there. But I’ve also seen many great Americans that come from the bigger towns in this nation. Americans that fight wars and others that join the Peace Corps. Americans with last names like Martinez, Husain and Wilson. And others like me that were born elsewhere, but believe in America as the land of opportunities, the land where you are accepted even if your country of origin happens to be one of the few remaining communist countries in the world. Try to be from anywhere else, anywhere else in the word and you’ll know what I mean. America, without its long history, has become the great nation it is because, not in spite, of its diversity.

Yesterday I attended my very first political rally ever. Barack Obama paid us a visit and I took the opportunity to show my support. It was perfect for an outdoor rally, a few clouds in the sky, the sun hitting gently as it moved behind the high-rises in downtown Miami, a mild temperature in the high 70s and an energizing crowd. I waited in line for hours. The crowd seemed to be the definition of diversity. Miami being the city with the highest foreign-born population in the US (37%) came out in a true rainbow coalition of kids, young and AARPs, Haitians, Jamaicans, Latinos, Caucasians, African-Americans, and Europeans. The thousands of us were shoulder to shoulder but it felt safe. Parents had taken their children to witness this historical moment, various flags and “Ready for Change” signs were all over. It was truly an experience. I know it would have been easier to see Obama had I stay watching C-SPAM or CNN, but there was no way to translate the experience of being there. At the end, I heard him speak, but can’t claim that I actually saw him. That’s what happens when you are surrounded by so many thousands of supporters. I was so energized that I walked all the way home from downtown Miami. 4 miles over the MacArthur Causeway, but I was walking on clouds.

So, what are my predictions? I don’t know. Like I said before, I don’t feel very trusty about the national polls. It can go either way. My question is, how am I going to feel the morning after? Am I going to feel that we are truly a very inclusive society where race mattered greatly in the past, but it is something that is becoming more and more transparent? Or is it going to be the same feeling as after the last two elections? Either way, it’s not as if freedom-loving AARP Cubans have a lot of choices in the short term, we’ll just have to deal with whatever the outcome.

Today is a nice day to go put in my early vote.