THE DAY AFTER

My son, the lawyer [no, no, not the three year old, as in the old Jewish joke. That is my grandson, the doctor] -- anyway, my son, the lawyer, warned me, when I started my blog, that it would be very burdensome. As usual, he was right. The hardest thing, I find, is dealing with the structural obligation to have an opinion about everything. I am not known as shy about expressing myself, but there really are a great many things about which I simply do not form an opinion worth expressing, let along immortalizing. Still, I have this blog, so I must have an opinion about yesterday's election.

Since all politics are local, as Tip O'Neill liked to say, let me start with the Chapel Hill elections. I knew the names of all the candidates, thanks to the ubiquitous lawn signs planted along the highways, but I had no idea who they were, and also no idea what, if any, were the hot issues. Since I feel a deep inner compulsion to vote every time I am offered the opportunity, Susie and I went off to the local YWCA [formerly the Meadowmont Swim Club]. As there were no party affiliations listed [Chapel Hill is too good for that], I hadn't a clue. Rather arbitrarily, I chose Augustus Cho from among the list of four candidates for Mayor, eschewing the chance to vote for Kevin Wolff. Well, Cho and Wolff between them racked up 3 1/2 % of the vote. The real race was between Kleinschmidt and Czajkowski, who split the remaining 96 1/2% . Kleinschmidt edged out Czajkowski, thereby becoming the first openly gay mayor of Chapel Hill. Rats! A great opportunity missed. Susie got it right, and voted for Kleinschmidt. Issues? It seems Kleinschmidt was the candidate of "old Chapel Hill," which means upper middle class academic and medical professionals who want all the business to be zoned into Durham across the county line and who make enough to pay the consequent exorbitant real estate taxes. Czsajkowski was the candidate of the business community. Very like Amherst, Mass, in a way.

Oh yes, the rest of America. What can I say? I weep whenever a Democrat loses, of course, but I cannot say my id was engaged in the NJ and VA governor races. I love the fact that the Conservative lost in NY 23rd, and I cannot wait to see the same wrecking crew destroy Charlie Crist's chances in Florida.

What really matters is Obama's decision with regard to Afghanistan, but that will have to wait for another post.

A LA RECHERCHE DU TEMPS PERDU

The past weeks have been difficult for those of us on the left who pledged our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor to the Obama campaign. The series of deeply troubling decisions about trials for the Guantanamo detainees, the brief in support of the Defense of Marriage Act, the failure to act on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, all have left us with a sickening feeling that what we worked so hard for is slipping away.

This morning, I dropped my wife off at Old Navy for a little shopping, and then waited for her in a nearby Barnes and Noble. After a cinnamon scone and a small coffee [absurdly called a grande by the Starbucks outlet in the bookstore], I decided to buy Richard Wolffe’s new book, Renegade, his account of the Obama campaign. As I read the first chapter, which focuses on election day itself, I found myself quite unexpectedly tearing up.

I think it is useful to take a deep breath and remember what a life-saving moment that day was for so many of us. By that November day, we had been wandering in the wilderness for four decades, starting with the devastating ’68 election of Nixon and relieved only by the failed presidency of Jimmy Carter, a profoundly decent man, and the ambiguous interregnum of Bill Clinton, a deeply flawed man. For those of my generation, who were born during the first Roosevelt term, it seemed that mortality would catch up with us before we could again feel anything resembling pride in the America that has been our earthly portion.

Despite his centrist instincts, and the objective constellation of political forces with which, as president, he must contend, Obama remains an inspiring and progressive figure, with whom, and through whom, we can pursue the goals that beckon to us and the ideals that inspire us. The more vigorously we organize in pursuit of those goals, the more clearly and insistently we articulate those ideals, the more positively he and his administration will respond.

We were not wrong to give so completely of ourselves to the cause of his campaign, and we need, all of us, from time to time, to allow those tears to flow yet again.