Opinions

Taking the next step

In print | November 6, 2008

I find myself in the position of an opinions columnist on deadline, on the week of the election, which for those in the know, means that what you are reading right now was written before the results of the election were known. That also assumes, though, that the results of the election were able to be known by this wonderful Thursday morning and that the result was decisive enough that all of us know who the victor was.

Whatever the result of November 4, 2008, many serious questions remain, the most important being — What now? After all, both parties’ candidates have spent the past twenty months campaigning on constantly evolving platforms, shaking untold numbers of unwashed hands, kissing scores of newborns, and giving speech after speech to anyone who would listen.

And over those past twenty months they also made countless promises in their sales pitches to the nation and its legions of eligible voters. Thus, two months from now the time will come for the victor to take the next step, to make the transition from candidate to president.

And though the next step has been repeatedly recited in those memorable ten second sound bites, is the next step really as clear now that the people have spoken? The idealistic part of me says that yes, it is clear.

I want to believe that the candidate elected will make good on the promises that he made to us during his campaigns, but my political instincts tell me to believe otherwise.

In our democracy, once the ticket has been elected, the Executive Branch may maintain whatever level of commitment to the popular electorate that it so chooses. The Executive Branch is only accountable to the nation when its actions are ruled unlawful or unconstitutional, or when the Legislative and Judicial Branches of the national government effectively check the power of the Executive Branch. If, for some unforeseen reason, the other branches begin to recognize their duty to check the power of the Executive Branch, then some of the inherent commitment to the nation could be restored.

Yet, if the actions taken by the Bush administration over the past eight years are any indication of a required level of commitment to the electorate, then we don’t have much to hope for. It would be foolish to expect any commitment to the electorate shown by the next Executive Branch beyond that which would be most politically prudent for the new administration in achieving its goals. But political sensibility is next to impossible for we, the electorate, to assess, as we do not have all of the information that our leaders have available to them. As a result, there isn’t much that we can expect from those elected.

We can still hope that they make good on some of the promises that they made to us, and hope that they don’t make good on other less appealing promises they made to us. However, hope will only get us so far, and as always we will continue to have to make our voices heard to all of our elected officials to help influence their decisions and bring about favorable outcomes for us and the nation as a whole.

For the presidential ticket to, for some unknown reason, interpret the popular show of support for them to be indicative of a commitment to stand for the nation at large, that would be something! Such would be historically improbable for the victor to actually do, given the dearth of examples of politicians making good on their campaign commitments.

Even so, the American electorate ought to demand the actions that it has been promised, by whichever candidate was popularly elected. And the other half of the electorate not pleased with the result ought to make every effort to make sure that the majority does not trample on the rights of the minority in the process of realizing those campaign commitments.

Regardless of who the victor was, we would be wise to continue to expect the following: Death, not limited to individuals, but rather death in all of its forms; taxes, which may or may not be increased depending on who won; stolen artifacts from the White House by the current administration; DC corruption and the greasing of the K Street lobbying wheel before the changeover; and midnight hour pardons by the current administration.

To friends who are not happy with the way the election turned out, you are entitled to a period of mourning of course, but soon thereafter you would be well-advised to move on. It’s only 28 months until the start of the next presidential campaign cycle, and 2012 certainly has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?

David is a junior. He can be reached at dburgy1@swarthmore.edu.