I Voted

On Wednesday actually. New York City doesn't have early voting, but it does allow for in-person absentee voting starting a couple weeks prior to election day. Since I won't be in Manhattan on election day, I decided to do my civic duty yesterday while I was downtown for work anyway.

I don't wanna get too mushy or hyperbolic, but even though it was only a paper ballot, instead of the visually and aurally gratifying (no snickering) old school lever machine New Yorkers are used to, the simple act of filling in the oval below the name Barack Obama was incredibly overwhelming. I've never before had so much hope for a candidate for any office.

I'm not saying that voting for the first legitimate black candidate for President of the United States has the same resonance for me as it does for African Americans who lived through the civil rights era, or even African American voters generally. My point is that Barack Obama represents so much to so many people of all different backgrounds. For me, he represents an end to the worst sin of the Bush Administration: the unwillingness to question the virtue of policies driven solely by ideology, and, more generally, the know-nothing anti-intellectualism now personified by Sarah Palin. Say what you want about specific Obama proposals, Barack Obama is an empiricist. In sharp contrast to dubya, a President Obama will base his decisions on evidence, and adjust his approach to issues as conditions change. Sometimes tax cuts and deficit spending are necessary. Sometimes they're destructive. Barack Obama understands this. Dubya didn't. McCain can't. This election is a chance to put to bed the notion that America is best off with an average joe (plumber or otherwise) at the helm.

Know hope. Vote egghead.