Thank you, America!

Last night, the cynicism that has been building in me over the past eight years finally flew the coop. My faith in the American people and their love of their country is restored. We decided against fear, suspicion and xenophobia and embraced our futures with open arms. We've got a lot of healing to do, no doubt, but we picked the right guy to do it, I have no doubt.

I know that Obama's victory, while sound, was not a total landslide. Many, many people voted for McCain and while I think that John McCain is a patriot and wants to do the right thing for his country, his campaign showed that he wasn't the right man for the job. He wasn't the McCain of 2000 - he let himself be molded and dragged around by the same people who worked so hard to destroy our democracy over the past 8 years. He didn't make the right decision about his running mate. His campaign took the low road while Obama's campaign for the most part stuck to their message and stayed out of the mud. They weren't perfect, but there were many, many things that the campaign could've gone after that they didn't touch. Even though Bush is on record as having been the Worst President Ever, McCain still ran his campaign straight from the Bush/Rove playbook. And he lost because of it.

Our country is still very much divided between red and blue. I don't think it ever will or should be any different. Even though I like the theoretical idea of a permanent Democratic majority, I think it would be very harmful to our democracy. We need people of all political stripes to keep us on our toes. What we don't need is a president like we've had for the past eight years, who systematically dismantles the controls that the founding fathers put in place to keep our democracy running. If I sound like a bit of a conspiracy theorist, it's because I started reading a little book called The End of America last week. I had to put it down until after the election because it was scaring the crap out of me. Everyone should read this book to see why Bush truly was the Worst President Ever. I don't think McCain would've necessarily wanted to follow in Bush's footsteps, but McCain has shown himself to be easily manipulated and brash in his decision making. We need someone who will clean up Bush's mess, and I'm so glad we've got him.

To any McCain supporters who've managed to read this far (kudos to you if you have!), I know it's hard to read things like this that you probably don't agree with at all. I know, because I've been reading concerns posted in various places by McCain supporters who think the world is going to end now that Obama has been elected. Let me try to reassure you. Obama is not going to tax you into oblivion. If you have a low or moderate income or a small business, you'll probably save money when Obama implements his tax plan. If you make over $250,000 per year, you can probably afford the extra $3000 or so you'll pay under his plan. I just ran our income through the Obama tax cut calculator, which you can find at his tax page, and our family will be paying over $1000 less in taxes under his plan. Go check out what you will save!

Of course, there are those with small businesses who "make" over $250,000 per year. The key terms here are "gross" vs "net". Obama is not going to suddenly start taxing businesses on gross, which is something that has been implied. If you net more than $250,000 from your business, congrats! That means you're probably grossing a couple million dollars and have a very successful business. There's this theory that taxing people a bit more on incomes over $250,000 is going to suddenly bring the economy to a halt and force people to stop hiring, but I would think that businesses would be encouraged to hire people, give them raises, etc. because that would mean they'd get a tax deduction for those employee expenses and wouldn't have to pay more taxes.

And now I'm going to stop rambling - why am I up posting this at 6:30 AM PST anyway? Stomach flu. Owen was the first to succumb and woke us up early Saturday morning with the barfies. We thought he'd just had too much Halloween candy until Sydney came down with the same thing on Sunday. Then I got hit with it and am still trying to recover. Both the kids are home from school because it just won't quit, and we're all quite miserable. I've been up since 4 because I just generally feel icky. It's going to be another fun day, I can feel it. The only good thing about it is that I slept most of the day on Monday, meaning I wasn't able to spend the day obsessing and predicting doom and gloom regarding the upcoming election. Aren't I lucky?