Election 2008- Winners and Losers

The rush of election night is over. It was a wonderful and cleansing experience, more from the sense that George W. Bush will be leaving the most powerful political office in the world and that he will not be replaced by a political clone, which is what the otherwise estimable John McCain morphed into with his desire to capture the Bush/Rove constituency.

The election of Barack Obama is not the dawning of the Age of Aquarius. Nor have we been blessed by the presence of the person Oprah Winfrey has declared to be "The One."

Obama will face hard choices from the moment the parades end on January 20th. He will have to lead this nation and the world from the brink of an economic abyss not seen since the Great Depression. He will have to set a course between Scylla and Charybdis as he finds a way to deal with global warming at a time when American industry is failing. He will have to balance the reality of a government dead broke from the insane economic policies of his predecessor while he tries to implement a full panoply of social welfare programs. As VP-Elect Joe Biden quiet accurately stated, this president will be tested and tried by our many enemies shortly after he takes office. Obama is often compared to President John Kennedy. The question that must be asked is whether Obama will prove to be the Kennedy who allowed himself to be mugged by Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna, or will Obama prove to be more like the Kennedy who coolly dealt with the Cuban Missile Crisis and averted nuclear war?

So despite the post-election giddiness that currently prevails at home and abroad, perilous times are upon us. But perilous times are always upon us: war, depression, war, the threat of nuclear annihilation, war, racism, economic failures. It never ends, nor will it ever end.

But there are some clear winners and losers that will emerge from this election, and I believe the winners are worthy of celebration. Let's take a look:

WINNERS:
The Constitution of the United States
The Rule of Law
Science
Reason
Education
The Middle Class
Rush Limbaugh and right-wing talk radio. They will have plenty to talk about for the next four years.
Rational market regulation

LOSERS:
The evil myths of the Nixon / Atwater / Rove / Schmidt Republican political machine
Creationism
Right Wing Evangelicals
Laissez-faire investment markets


We could have done a lot worse.