Election 2012 - Thoughts

 I woke up yesterday morning feeling cautiously optimistic.  I knew that it would take a whole series of things to go exactly right for a Romney win but I thought it was possible.  I didn't watch a lot of TV during the day so when I did tune in, I remained nervous but hopeful.  The moment I knew it wasn't going our way was when I listened to Rob Portman address the Romney crowd in Boston via video link from Ohio.  He didn't sound like a man delivering a state to Romney.  My heart sank and soon all the networks were calling Ohio and the election for Obama.  I cried.  I just couldn't help it.  Last night as sleep eluded me, I tried to figure out why this election touched me so deeply.  I have voted for men who didn't win before....in 1992, 1996, and 2008. What made this one so different and so personal?

I think it is because I felt as if I knew Mitt Romney.  I might have sat beside him in church and attended church socials with him had I lived in Boston.  I have direct experience working  along side professionally successful men like him on leadership counsels in our church.  I have seen their practical solutions to problems.  I have seen them reach out to people who didn't agree with them, to people with vastly different experiences, and to people with totally different financial situations.  I have seen them give amazing amounts of help both financially and with their time to people in a variety of circumstances.  When dealing with a family's financial challenges, I have observed their careful stewardship of the church's money, money voluntarily given by others to help the poor.  The ultimate aim of all church financial help is to assist a person or family temporarily so that they can again be  in a position to help themselves.  Time and time again I have seen men like Mitt Romney help people out of the need for assistance rather than making them dependent on assistance. I could see a Romney Presidency implementing these same principles and changing the direction of our country.  But alas, it was't meant to be and so I cried.

I also came up with a few take-away thoughts from Election 2012

• The polls are accurate.  Realclearpolitics.com got it almost exactly right.  Next time I will trust them.
• While I am sure that there were people who didn't vote for Romney because he is Mormon or Obama because he is black, the vast majority of citizens did not cast their vote based on these criteria.  Our country is NOT racist or anti-Mormon.
• Our country is close to evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats; Liberals and Conservatives.  Our elected officials need to figure out how to reach across the aisle without giving up their core values and principles.  They must come together for the good of our country.
• We will never know the difference the media made in being so behind Obama.  What if 60 minutes had released the tape of President Obama saying the Bengazi attack was not a terrorist attack on the day after the Candy Crowley debate?  What if all the networks had covered the Bengazi attack with the accuracy and thoroughness of Fox?  We'll never know.
• We will never know what affect Hurricane Sandy and Governor Christie's bipartisan dance across New Jersey had.  We will know how accurate he was in praising the President's leadership as things unfold. 
• With the House and the Senate almost identical to the last 4 years, President Obama will not have free rein to just implement any thing he wants.  I'm most nervous about his possible executive orders but hopefully my fears are unfounded.

So what am I going to do now?  Life goes on! I'm going to take a total break from all things political until at least after Christmas.  No talk radio, liberal or conservative, no news shows, no blogs, no political sites on the internet!  I love this quote by James E Faust, one of our church leaders. "Your success as a family, our success as a society depends not on what happens in the White House, but on what happens inside your house."

So in my house I'm going to concentrate on making myself a better person and I'm going to pray for our President Barack Obama and the newly elected House and Senate.  I'm going to concentrate on calming my troubled heart.