The First 100 Days

So, do elections really make a difference?

I think that’s abundantly clear at this time.

Consumer confidence (it was revealed today) is rising for the first time since last summer. Gitmo will be closed within the year. The United States of America no longer engages in torture. The USA will, once again, support real science and advanced medical research, including stem-cell research that seems to hold a good deal of promise for eventually treating – perhaps even curing – diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. There are indications that the hemorrhaging of real estate values is beginning to slow down, if not yet turn around.

Yesterday I received an email from my brother Chris (a Republican leaning Independent) that recounted all sorts of bad things that he was told would happen if he voted for John McCain for president. Items listed were along the lines of: unemployment will rise, more troops will be sent to Afghanistan, the federal deficit would increase, things like that… then, the punch line at the close of the email was something along the lines of, “Well, I guess my democrat friends were right, because I voted for McCain and all these things have come to pass!”

It’s clever, sure.

But, it also fails to acknowledge what President Obama inherited upon taking office. How did this current financial crisis begin? With an ideologically driven compulsion toward deregulation and so-called free markets. The Bush administration (and, to a degree, the Clinton administration before it) sowed the seeds that led to our current financial crisis. Mr. Obama was handed a plate of feces on a platter and he’s working hard to try to fix things. Has everything been fixed in the first 100 days? Of course not. But, we are on our way. And there are some positive signs, indeed, some very positive signs of change.

The world views our country in a more favorable light. Greater than two-thirds of the country (according to a Pew Research poll) think that the country is “heading in the right direction.” And, nearly 70% of those polls give Mr. Obama high marks for his job performance.

Change is coming. That’s what he promised us and that’s what he’s delivering.

Today, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania announced that he’s trading in his ‘R’ for a ‘D.’ Cynics will call this a self-serving move designed to help insure his political survival in a state that has been steadily becoming more blue over the last several years. Pragmatists (as I like to think I am) will take him at face value when he says, “The Republican party has moved far to the right.” It has.

Welcome, Senator Specter. And, keep on keeping on President Obama. A lot of us have your back!