The last day dawns – and while most Americans have already made up their mind about which candidate they will support, I think it’s fair to say a lingering sense of doubt still tugs at some. Not doubt as to which candidate to vote for, but doubt as to whether either man can actually extricate us from our current woes. Time Magazine runs an interesting article this morning, “How They Would Lead,” and highlights the idea that regardless of which candidate wins, he heads into one of the most difficult presidential transitions/inaugurations since Lincoln’s.

The article is interesting, and I encourage you to read it – it’s Time Magazine, so obviously it’s a bit on the left, but it was a much less biased assessment than I expected. Insightful too, not only insofar as it looks forward to the next presidency, but also as it recounts past ones.

But the article is only the impetus of my post today, not it’s center. Today’s rambling stems from a consideration I’ve been having over the past few months. Of course, I believe in voting for the person who will make the best president, as we all do. Occasionally, I suppose, we are actually voting for the candidate who will not make the worst president, but you know what I mean. And of course, from our next president, we need someone who will reform social security, reconcile the immigration issues, fight our energy crisis, stabilize our current economic nightmare, and so forth. And, because I am Republican and see things the way I do, I think McCain is a better bet for this.

On the other hand though, the issue bears considering: what kind of president does the country need — not what kind of president do the issues need (one president won’t solve them all anyway), but what about the nation itself? What does a McCain victory do for the country? Does it divide us further? Does it sink us deeper into this sort of national-melancholy we find ourselves in? I don’t know. In an almost entirely Democrat Congress, does a Republican president wreak more havoc than do good?

And what does it do to/for the GOP as a whole? As a party, should we back down, lay low for 4 years — let the Democrats have a run of it (especially since they basically own Congress and I just can’t see Pelosi-Reid cooperating with McCain), and regroup? Come back in 4 years with a stronger candidate, a stronger party, a stronger sense of mission? We’re a tired old party, and although I wish we weren’t, maybe it’s time not to fight, but to rebuild.

Does Obama fix all our problems? No. Good grief — he isn’t the Messiah. But he is young, idealistic (to the point of naivety?), driven, and inspiring. And so while I’m probably going to vote for McCain, I can’t help but wonder if an Obama victory might do more for the America I want to live in than my candidate’s victory. He brings the bright-eyed belief back into the American Dream. Change and Hope and Yes We Can and all that rhetoric that is sometimes more damaging than beneficial in politics. Sometimes the rhetoric detracts attention from the real issues (as in the first days of Obama’s campaign). But right now, I have to wonder, maybe the rhetoric has a place. Maybe before we can tackle any of the issues, we have to believe we’re a country that’s worth tackling issues for. Maybe we’re a nation in need of a dream again.

Now don’t get me wrong. Do I fear a country lead by the Obama-Pelosi-Reid triumvirate? Uh, yeah — it would be an absolute wreck (but McCain vs Pelosi-Reid won’t be pretty either, though in different ways).

(As a side note: an Obama victory may also help the economy because, however lame I find this, most Americans believe he can fix the economy. And really the biggest problem with the economy is that people think its tanking — so they don’t spend, they don’t lend, they don’t invest. When they believe it’s not going down as drastically, they increase their spending/lending/investing and the economy stabilizes. It’s the ultimate power of positive thinking. Yeah. That’s how this country works — on the feel-goodness of ordinary people. Go figure.)

Back on track – yes, I fear That Trimvirate — but I also have a healthy skepticism as to how much even our Congress with the President can mess up in 4 years. Look at all the promises Congress made to us 2 years ago when the Democrats desperately wanted to take control? And how many of those have been enacted? What’s that? Almost none, you say? Why, yes, yes, that’s right. Because the only thing that has a lower approval rating than President Bush right now is our Democrat-led Congress. And with the domestic/economic situation being what it is, priorities are realigning for all of us. Even the Democrats will find their noble hands tied in many ways. Time reports that even the staunchest supporters of tax increases realize that now isn’t the time to do it. In a period where all Americans are finding themselves stretched, even our elected leaders aren’t dumb enough to stretch more. For once in our lives, politicians’ secret agendas and personal egos may actually (maybe, perhaps, there is a tiny chance) take second stage to combatting the potentially debilitiating future that looms ahead of us all.

I also have a lot of faith in Americans’ ability to change their mind. The President gets, supposedly, 100 days to make a difference. What our leaders have done in their first 100 days have historically shaped their entire time in the White House. As citizens, we expect great things from our leaders, and when they don’t deliver, Americans rarely hesitate to throw support the other way. If Obama-Pelosi-Reid don’t bring about some real change pretty quick, chances are the GOP can come back more alive than ever in 4 years.

If, and only if, someone starts thinking over there at GOP headquarters.

I’d like to close my ranting here with the final quote from the Time article referenced above. It’s not directly related to what I was saying, but I think it’s an insightful observation of the current political scene:

A sad fact of contemporary politics is that we’ve lost the ability to get through a campaign without transforming honorable alternatives into cartoons of good and evil. Disagreement is out; denunciation is in. The distinctive tune of our day is hysteria with a drumbeat of hyperbole, all set in the key of bad faith.

Underneath, however, Americans still long for the mystic chords of memory strummed by the better angels of our nature — a patriotic harmony that we like to think is the song of our nation at its best. This is why the two candidates who fared best in this election were the ones who spoke most convincingly about bringing us together. When the two are finally narrowed to one, his mandate will be change, his timetable short and his environment stormy with division. At a historic moment desperate for a successful President, everything will hinge on one man’s ability to navigate by the clouded star of common purpose.