When I get to the end, I am usually happy

Here we are in November and the election is finally over. It seemed like it would never end, but I guess with a little time we finally got enough craziness going on in the country and the world that the ultimate issues all came to the fore and we really saw what the candidates could do (or couldn't do).

When I used to clerk of Judge Whitmire in the Flint Circuit, he had a stack of files on his desk which were the files he didn't want to deal with. Periodically, he would pull the stack into his lap and hand me several files to look over, research and get back to him. The rest would go back onto his desk. I always felt that the candidates were ignoring the economy to talk about things which shouldn't have been preeminent before the electorate. It was only when they were forced to deal with the economy that we could catch a glimpse of their possibilities.

This year the election process actually took two years to complete. The end result of that was that the emphasis of the election left the propriety of keeping troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and swept into the drooping economy. All of a sudden, we didn't need to decide who was right in sending and then keeping troops in the Middle East. Or who was consistent. Instead, we had to figure out what needed to be done in order to dig ourselves out of the economic hole in which we now find ourselves.

It was at this point that I turned to Cindy and said, "I want a reshuffle."

Neither candidate seemed to be very adept at providing a solution to this mess. Instead, they both started speaking in platitudes and telling us what we already knew, which was that we were in an economic doldrums and needed to work to get out.

Well, duh.

At this point, Senator Obama started saying that Senator McCain was just a follower of President Bush and we didn't need four more years of that. While that is true, it is also true that Senator McCain was in the Senate for the Reagan years and the Bush years and the Clinton years as well. So he was able to see a lot of good times and bad. You would think he would have a clearer perspective on what works and what doesn't. On the other hand, he was serving in the Senate during a time when there was a lot of effort for government to keep its hands off the economy, with the exception of Alan Greenspan, who tinkered from time to time. In that sense, perhaps experience isn't a good thing. At the same, the only part of economics which he seemed to be involved with was earmarks for pork projects on bills. So McCain didn't seem to be the guy to handle this situation.

Meanwhile, Senator McCain started labelling Senator Obama a socialist or communist, depending on which version you believed. Fortunately for his campaign, Senator Obama seemed to sit rather serenely above the crowd of accusations. I think this stood him in good stead during the last month of the election.

Hindsight being 20/20, I like both gentlemen and feel we couldn't have done much worse with either one. The truth of the matter seems to be that the electorate wanted to shove the old dudes and dudettes into the street and replace them with a new group.

So my ultimate prediction will probably come true. Whoever won will ultimately suffer from the economic doldrums and the problem with trying to figure out an exit strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan. The final result will be the voting out of the new guys in two, four or six years from now.

My problem with the Republican party right now is they seem to be lost in trying to replicate the Reagan years without Reagan. I don't know how you do that. Everyone who seems to mirror the conservative orthodoxy is too young or a political light weight. The young ones in the wings are too young and untested. They suffer from the same problem President-elect Obama will carry when he gets sworn in.

At the same time, they forget the expanding federal deficit, the silly wars in island nations, the savings and loan crises, the Iran Contra hearings, the expansion of the federal government under Reagan. All they think about was that smiling face, the clever quips and the rise of Republican political power across the nation.

Fortunately, for the Bushes, President Bush can go back home to Texas now and be the nice guy he is at bottom and won't have to worry about what Vice President Cheney tells him to do. Leaders have talents which are utilized in certain environments. President Bush was trying to push us back into the Reagan years at a time when the economy was strong and there was really no reason to change anything.

Then 9/11 happened and President Bush could respond to the trauma. He did a good job of representing the country initially, but then got involved with bad intelligence, wishy-washy UN inspectors, and too much bad advice. The end result was a situation where we have committed our troops in a situation in which we have ultimately been militarily successful, but politically caught up in a growing problem which isn't resolving itself. Where do we go from here?

Then Katrina and Rita hit, followed by other hurricanes and a dropping economy, and the emphasis should have been placed on domestic matters. But you couldn't get President Bush off the Middle East. Terrorist threats became the mantra and the economy, which I could see sinking several years ago, and I'm just a small town lawyer in Georgia, was swept to the back burner.

Until about three months ago, when, all of a sudden, the big boys in New York and LA acknowledged what everyone in the hinterland knew already: things were bad. Its nice when they catch up.

This isn't something new. In the 20's, we had incredible floods in 1927, followed by the dust bowl. The farmers and folks outside Washington, New York and LA were suffering long before the guys on Wall Street started jumping off ledges and lining up for soup. Of course, things are always bad for farmers, so I suppose no one, particularly Calvin "The Business of America is Business" Coolidge, noticed anything was wrong until it was too late.

Meanwhile, Herbert Hoover, who was possibly the perfect man for the job, an engineer with a history of dealing with economic crises, started listening to his Republican advisors and decided to let the sickness resolve itself. That's why he was a one term president, and it may end up being why President Obama may be a one term president.

America needed Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1932. Any authority to the contrary probably needs to consider that the people of the time continually elected him for four terms. I would trust them over some pundit of the day, even Newt. You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool the people for four consecutive terms.

You can say that Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a socialist. Or you can say he was someone who was in charge and saw something needed to be done. I am a pragmatist. I think there are times when things need to be allowed to percolate, and other times when you need to cut the percolator off. But you can't afford to be caught up in any particular philosophy of government. I like a little flexibility.

In the history of our government, the competing forces in politics have been the democratic force which values equality and provides every citizen a voice and the republican force which wants the best to rise to the fore. In my mind, both forces are necessary to the health of the country.

At the same time, the concept of "the best government is the government which governs least" probably works most of the time, until something needs to be done to protect portions of our country from being victimized by the other portions of our country. Regulation is needed to some degree. Otherwise, we'll find ourselves in a situation where our important industries are sucking wind and asking for help, only to use the money we throw at them for spas and parties in California. It reminds me of an imprudent parent who gives his children money, only to see them spend it all on toys and candy.

A little Calvin springs to mind. We are all sinners in the hands of an angry God. And because we are sinners, we all need regulation from time to time. That is why we have police all over the place. But it is also the reason we need somebody guarding the hen house as well. Making sure those big corporations aren't doing the easy thing, but instead doing the right thing. Ensuring the government is operating in accordance with the law. President Carter enunciated that in 1979, and nobody appreciates what he saw. Of course, he had other problems.

No one is perfect. Even the government. We are a government of the people, by the people and for the people. If the governed are sinners, then so are the governors. That's why James Madison is such an important figure in our past. We need that Bill of Rights, and all the amendments and even the penumbra around it and all the unspoken or accepted rights, because we can't really trust a government of the people to protect our individual rights.

Freedom and Restraint. They are both important. The real necessity is finding the golden mean between the two. Or finding a place where they both can flourish in unity. Watch your children and see where the mean lies. Do it with love, realizing we are all God's children.

I hope the men and women we just elected can find the path with a common respect. The one thing I can really say about Senator Obama and Senator McCain: in the end, they both seemed to respect the other. That, perhaps, is the ultimate hope we all should carry with us as we head to the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009.