As Janece already pointed out, we have a new family member.

And as of tonight she has a new name – Chaya (pronouced “chai-ah”). According to the baby name site we found it on, “chaya” is a word of Hebrew origin meaning “life”.

I think names are a big deal. In legends about Faerie, the myth goes that you never reveal your true name because it gives every magic denizen power over you, over your core essence. So you always pick a traveling name when wandering through Faerie.

While I don’t believe that names have mystical power over you, i do think that a name can shape you over time like a glacier carving a mountain, that it shifts your perception of yourself and others perception of you as well. I think that’s why people find they like shorter versions of their names (“Bob”) while other feel like the long version (“Robert”) fits them better. Some people discard the name they were born with completely in favor of one that they feel expresses them better or for religious/cultural reasons (“Malcom X”).

Janece kept her last name when we were married (Clement). She said liked her family name and didn’t feel like a Mossbarger (my last name). When Amira was born, we talked a lot about how to handle it – maybe letting her choose her last name, or maybe hyphenating.

The only path that seemed to feel right was to change our last names to one that we could all share. It felt right because we knew Amira was going to add a whole new dimension on our long-time friendship that we’d had since high school. In a way, Janece and I were being born into a new family just as much as her and that the new family needed it’s own identity. And of course, “Moment” had all kinds of connotations and symbolism attached to it that really seemed to express what we are after in our lives, a reminder of our goal as a couple to admire those glittering jewels of seconds and minutes and hours that pour through our hands daily.

I didn’t know how it would feel to be a “Moment”. I’d been a Mossbarger my whole life, and had a whole cultural and personal association with that name that would be lost in some sense when I took on the new identity. (Most women go through this when they marry, of course, so this isn’t anything new – it was just new to me.) I’d been kidded about that name in school, written it on countless letters and checks, been associated with it’s reputation through my family, and it felt strange to let it go.

It was a bit tough for my parents, I gather. It’s culturally normal for women to change their name at a big life event like marriage, but I think my dad especially felt more strongly than he realized about a son’s responsibility to continue carrying on the family name. When I initially told him about our decision, he said “great – whatever you guys want to do”, but in a later conversation he brought it up again, wondering why I would give up that name – his name. He understood the reasons I gave him – primarily that our new last name was built on and carried with it bits of our original names – but I’ve wondered occasionally if it still has sat with him over time like me pulling away. And, maybe in a way it was.

As for me, the change has actually had a measurable effect. I feel proud of our new little family circle, and the history we’re writing every day for this new family name, starting with its offbeat origins. I feel reminded by it every day to connect, to take hold of the important experiences as they come by, to steer off the beaten path and open myself up to the unexpected.

Which brings me back to Chaya. I feel new responsibility pretty strongly, to the point of exaggeration at times, and I often drag my feet at jumping into new responsibilities that will mean a life change. And a dog, especially a large dog, isn’t a trivial commitment. This time, even though the circumstances around getting Chaya required a quick decision, it struck me that this was an opportunity to skip the analyzing and just jump in.

Chaya means “life”. It’s a good name, easy to say, and easy to call out with some force, up close or over a distance which is important for training. But symbolically it feels like a good pick because she’s now a Moment, and being a Moment means recognizing the opportunity every day to welcome and embrace life.

Welcome to our circle, Chaya!

If you made it this far, then it’s comment time! Ever thought about your name? Do you like it, and why? Would you ever change it, and if so, what to?

I’d be interested to know what y’all thought of it, if you had a chance to watch it. If not, here it is.

I wasn’t the audience for this – me or any other Obama partisan. It was aimed at still-undecided voters (who in the world is undecided at this point?) or weak Dems/Rep that could still be persuadable with the idea of “emotionally educating” voters still not sure what Obama feels is at stake in this election.

It comes as no surprise to anyone who followed the Democratic National Convention that the production values were second-to-none. The lighting, camera work, and editing was immaculate and the whole piece felt surprisingly short and tightly executed given that there 30 mins of airtime to fill. Any pundit tuning in and expecting to see a Ross-Perot style policy harangue was willfully neglecting the campaign’s creative record to date.

The most striking part, intentionally, was the tone. The Obama campaign, true to form, has carefully come full circle at the end to his original campaign proposition of hope and change. This long-form political ad (“informercial” sounds way too cheesy for this kind of quality) was built to connect Obama’s policy points – things we junkies have heard interminably – to real American stories, to connect what he as a candidate has been doing on the trail for 21 months to easily recognizable, on-the-ground realities. And to do it by leaving a sense of optimism – that the future has yet to be written.

Obama has once again demonstrated his desire to be a progressive Reagan, to win the election with a positive message. Watching the ad had the effect of laying a blanket of silence over the maddening political buzz of the last few weeks and giving viewers an emotional calm injection about the presidential race. That’s an enormously powerful message, one that people respond to instinctively, whether or not they know rationally they are being given an emotional appeal. Positivity seals the deal.

The only off note to me was laying it on too thick with the “Healer-in-Chief” imagery at the end. If I was on the editing side of the table, my instincts would have been to lean back a bit on that and let people come out of the piece simply letting Obama’s image stand as the hardworking, intelligent, decent leader that he can be. I think any healing the nation will experience will be tangential to a successful, no-drama administration. I don’t think we need a national therapist as much as just an adult leader.

Other than that, money well spent, I think, and another notch in the belt of the best political PR team either party has seen in a long time. I’m sure it had exactly its intended effect.

A side note on creative stuff:

Nevermind the electorate – I wonder how many creatives will be inspired to get into the usually tacky world of political ad building after the Obama team’s example. From the typography to the logo to the signage to the staging to the multimedia, this campaign team has just never stumbled. As a designer interested in the power of branding, messaging, and creative quality, I’ve just been impressed over and over at their attention to detail and their management of a brand on such a large and unruly scale.

More than that, the Obama branding has seamlessly allowed for third-party viral branding of all kinds – the Will.I.Am video, the Shepherd Fairey “Hope” and “Change” posters (with their endless imitations), and on and on.  If Obama was running this race to be Designer In Chief, this race would be an electoral massacre.

For those who are interested in such things, some interesting thoughts on Obama’s brand and other winning political brands here, here, here and here.

To all of you anti-American terrorist lovin’ commies who said yee-haw in the comments…. Thanks. I suddenly feel as if I’m not the the only person in the last year that has lost a horrifying amount of man-hours to following this election.

This election has not, and should never, come down to simply electing a black man to be our President. But I was struck tonight anew at how impossible that idea was almost 2 years ago, what our nation is poised to do in a few days, and what that will mean for our national psyche and the future for race relations in this country.

The numbers tell the story – record turnout in GA, NC, LA – for black people who, for the first time, feel deeply and gratefully our country relaxing its grip on the past and turning toward a more colorblind and less divisive future.

These stories grabbed me tonight, made me grateful, made me shed some tears.

In a wonderful piece, Eli Sanders takes us back and gives us some context for the moment when the possibility for a new future for America broke through – Obama’s overwhelming win in lily-white Iowa:

He [Obama] then launched into a defense of his campaign’s emphasis on hope, an idea mocked as too starry-eyed and impractical by other candidates as they have tried to stop Obama’s rise. “Hope is what led me here today,” Obama said. “With a father from Kenya, a mother from Kansas, and a story that can only happen in the United States of America. Hope is the bedrock of this nation. The belief that our destiny will not be written for us, but by us. By all those men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is, who have the courage to remake the world as it should be. That is what we started here in Iowa, and that is the message we can now carry to New Hampshire and beyond.”

The crowd went wild, and a very new type of candidate, and a very new type of president, suddenly seemed a very real possibility.

~ Read the rest of the story.

This time in American history has been a long time in coming, and Obama has been the catalyst that has joined together generations and races in an unprecedented way:

Finally, some of The Wire alumni did a rally for Obama in North Carolina. I love this bit at the end:

Now I have a confession. Even Brett doesn’t know this. I hope it doesn’t lessen the professional work we’re trying to accomplish in chronicling this historic election on the ground, but if it does, I’ll live with it. There is something stirring in America.

Back at the rally, after the march had left MLK Gardens, I’d gone back for the car while Brett took photos, and I spotted a very old black man in a sharp Sunday suit walking slowly at the very back of the huge march. He hadn’t yet arrived at the voting center, and I decided to find him when I got back.

I wanted to go talk to him, to ask him what this moment meant to him. He was a guy who you take one glance at, and know, that guy’s seen it all. I wanted a quote. I had my journalist hat on. I thought, this will be great.

So when I got back to the voting location with the car, I went to find him in the line. Eventually I spotted him, and was ready to walk up the few feet between us and introduce myself when I stopped in my tracks.

A young black boy, no more than eight years old, walked up to this man, who was at least eighty. The boy offered the man a sticker, probably an “I Voted” sticker, but I couldn’t see. The man took the sticker and paused. Silently, he looked down at the boy, who was looking back up at the man. The man put his hand gently on the boy’s head, and I saw his eyes glisten.

I didn’t ask the man for a quote. I didn’t need to. I walked over by myself, behind the community center, and I sat down on a bench next to the track, and wept.

~ from the indispensable FiveThirtyEight.com

Me, too. What a story we’ve been privileged to witness.

The only direction this race seems to be moving is incrementally toward Obama. I mean, the GOP is now spending ad money in Montana (!) where Bush won in 2004 by 20 points, just to try and stop the bleeding somewhere, somehow. As far as the election goes, the interesting horse race has moved to the House and Senate races, and the question of whether the Dems will be picking up a filibuster-proof majority.

So, President Obama. Again, I remain in awe of what this skinny, black, big-eared, unlikely, long-shot candidate has accomplished in less than two years. The fact that he is poised to enter office on the biggest tidal wave of electoral and popular votes since Reagan says volumes about his personal discipline, political instincts and organizational skill. He has emerged as a truly extraordinary figure.

But, as Eli points out in the Stranger, it’s worth remembering that the myth of the Great Man may well just be that – a myth. He points to this word of caution from Ezra Klein:

But the “great man” theory of the presidency is not convenient when it comes to actually creating change. Again and again, presidents disappoint. They fail to pass health-care reform or Social Security privatization. They don’t ease partisanship or break through gridlock. They prove impotent in the face of immediate crises and leave long-term challenges to fester. And so we tire of them, resolving to replace them with more presidents. Better presidents. Presidents of the other party, or of the same party, or of no party at all. Businessmen like Mike Bloomberg, insurgents like Ralph Nader, charismatic leaders like Barack Obama, self-professed mavericks like John McCain.

Executive leadership is important, of course, but the continual failure of our presidents should be lesson enough that it is not sufficient. The executive is but one actor in a sprawling drama. Consider this: Comprehensive health reform has been attempted or considered by Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton. It cannot be that they were all dunces, or weaklings, or incapable legislative tacticians.

What is clear is that President Obama, facing some of the most gob-smacking set of challenges an Executive in recent memory has confronted, has his work cut out for him. How is he preparing for the transition? What will be his governing priorities? What campaign promises might he need to sideline? What will be his legislative chances and tactics to achieve his goals? Who are the players in this buzz of behind-the-scenes preparations?

In an excellent New Yorker article, John Heilemann set out to answer these questions, and it’s fascinating reading. Some tasty excerpts.

McCain’s looming defeat:

I asked the second [GOP] strategist if there was any way, absent an act of God or Osama bin Laden, he could envision Obama losing the election. “The cake is baked,” he replied. “McCain is getting outspent six to one in states he has to win, and Obama is ahead or close. We’re gonna lose Virginia, North Carolina is slipping away. And here’s what I’m scared about: We’re losing first-time voters by 50 points—50! What the McCain people need to focus on now is trying to cut the margin of defeat. I hate to say it, but at this point, that’s the best that we can hope for.”

Preparing for the transition:

All too aware that, should he win, these cascading crises will leave Obama with no time to gain his sea legs and terrifyingly little margin for error, he and his people, to a degree few realize, have been planning their transition from campaigning to governing for months with characteristic care and rigor. Like so much about Obama’s historic bid for the presidency, the first few days and weeks and months will be like nothing we have seen before—and all of it grounded in the insight that, mind-boggling as it might sound, winning was the easy part.

Who is REALLY “ready to lead on day one”?

It should come as no surprise that No Drama Obama wants his transition to be nothing like that of Chaotic Clinton’s. Already his pre-transition is exhibiting the kind of order and discipline (and lack of leaks) that have been the hallmarks of his campaign. With the help of some 50 old Washington hands, Podesta and his people are drafting a book-length transition blueprint, with agency-by-agency policy agendas, including day-one, day-100, and year-one objectives, too. Résumés are already being collected. Daily conference calls and meetings occur. Of Obama’s pre-transition planning—and, in fact, of McCain’s as well—Clay Johnson has said, “The amount of work being done before the election, formal and informal, is the most ever.” (Ed Note: The Huffington Post contradicts the McCain piece. Their article states that he’s done next to nothing to date to put a transition together.)

On the astonishing coalition that Obama has built from the ground up during his campaign:

Yet the very feebleness of Reid and Pelosi may work to Obama’s advantage; they are much more likely to see their fates as bound up with his than Tom Foley and George Mitchell ever did with Clinton’s. Obama’s race, in a funny way, may make him less vulnerable to mau-mauing by the left. And the unconventional way he ran for office, the whole bottom-up movement thing, may grant him a degree of independence unique in modern history. “Personally, I think the depth of the Obama realignment is being underestimated,” says the Republican media savant Stuart Stevens, who helped elect Bush twice. “They have basically invented their own party that is compatible with the Democratic Party but is bigger than the Democratic Party. Their e-mail list is more powerful than the DNC or RNC. In essence, Obama would be elected as an Independent with Democratic backing—like Bernie Sanders on steroids.”

On his immediate legislative priorities:

“…If I win, every member of Congress on the Democratic side, and some on the Republican side, is going to have ideas about pressing needs and worthy programs. Trying to set some very hard, clear priorities is going to be tough.”

Already Obama is hinting strongly at what his priorities will be. Consistent with what Emanuel told me, Obama now informs Time’s Joe Klein that endeavoring to spark “a new energy economy [is] going to be my No. 1 priority when I get into office.” At the same time, Obama will surely press immediately for his middle-class tax cut, which happens to be sound economics in recessionary times and also irresistible politically.

Definitely take the time to read the whole article.

One more thing: what is our part in this? Here’s Obama giving his closing argument speech in Ohio:

It won’t be easy, Ohio. It won’t be quick. But you and I know that it is time to come together and change this country. Some of you may be cynical and fed up with politics. A lot of you may be disappointed and even angry with your leaders. You have every right to be. But despite all of this, I ask of you what has been asked of Americans throughout our history.

I ask you to believe – not just in my ability to bring about change, but in yours.

If you’re as PUMPED as I am to FINALLY have a grownup back in the White House again, gimme a YEE-HAW in the comments!

Did I call it, or did I call it? Palin is setting up for 2012. She is campaigning in Iowa, a state that has been double-digit Obama for months with no chance of a McCain win, but a state that is a crucial starting point for presidential campaigns. And as the inevitable McCain campaign crack-up stories emerge, it’s getting clearer that she’s trying to set McCain up as a fall-guy for losing this race and dragging down the GOP’s chances in order to get herself into the pack of 2012 candidates.

Four Republicans close to Palin said she has decided increasingly to disregard the advice of the former Bush aides tasked to handle her, creating occasionally tense situations as she travels the country with them. Those Palin supporters, inside the campaign and out, said Palin blames her handlers for a botched rollout and a tarnished public image — even as others in McCain’s camp blame the pick of the relatively inexperienced Alaska governor, and her public performance, for McCain’s decline.

“She’s lost confidence in most of the people on the plane,” said a senior Republican who speaks to Palin, referring to her campaign jet. He said Palin had begun to “go rogue” in some of her public pronouncements and decisions.

“I think she’d like to go more rogue,” he said.

~ via Ben Smith

McCain sources say Palin has gone off-message several times, and they privately wonder whether the incidents were deliberate. They cited an instance in which she labeled robocalls — recorded messages often used to attack a candidate’s opponent — “irritating” even as the campaign defended their use. Also, they pointed to her telling reporters she disagreed with the campaign’s decision to pull out of Michigan.

A second McCain source says she appears to be looking out for herself more than the McCain campaign.

“She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone,” said this McCain adviser. “She does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else.

“Also, she is playing for her own future and sees herself as the next leader of the party. Remember: Divas trust only unto themselves, as they see themselves as the beginning and end of all wisdom.”

~ via CNN

After the Biden/Palin debate, I was pretty freaked out about her being anywhere near the national stage again. She is a walking disaster. But, thankfully since then, the rest of the country has seen very clearly what she’s all about and issued a resounding “Don’t call us, we’ll call you”. I think Coates puts it best:

This is not a politician who will be president–like, ever. Here you have a white woman running for national office, who far from being seen as representative, is disliked by a shockingly high number of other white women. You can’t win the White House that way. It’s popular to assume that you don’t pay any price for ignorance in politics. This is wrong. You don’t pay an immediate price–but the long-term brand damage is real.

~ via Ta-Nehisi Coates

And I really loved this quote from the CNN article:

But two sources, one Palin associate and one McCain adviser, defended the decision to keep her press interaction limited after she was picked, both saying flatly that she was not ready and that the missteps could have been a lot worse.

They insisted that she needed time to be briefed on national and international issues and on McCain’s record.

“Her lack of fundamental understanding of some key issues was dramatic,” said another McCain source with direct knowledge of the process to prepare Palin after she was picked. The source said it was probably the “hardest” to get her “up to speed than any candidate in history.”

Yup, yup. You can fool yourself a lot of the time, and you can fool some people some of the time, but you can’t fool all the people all the time.

So, Sarah, run your heart out, baby! We, the American people will greet you in 2012 with tightly closed arms and turned backs. Knock yourself out!

If, like me, you are puzzled about what the @#$% happened that landed our economy so badly in the toilet, what the government is attempting to do about it, and what’s going to happen down the line, then you’ll definitely want to grab some time to listen to/read this stuff or download it to your iPod for listening later.

This American Life, one of the best shows ever created for radio (haven’t seen the TV version yet), did two seperate shows on the subprime meltdown, the resulting credit crisis, and the government’s actions to try and stop a massive worldwide financial collapse. You’d think it would be dry, wonky stuff, but it’s incredibly interesting and worth understanding so that you can interpret what’s happening in the news.

This American Life, “The Giant Pool Of Money” (29Mb)

Go get Adobe Flash Player!

This American Life, “Another Frightening Show About The Economy” (29Mb)

Go get Adobe Flash Player!

These shows have been some of TAL’s most listened-to programs, and as a result the reporters went on to create a blog and podcast that is continuing to monitor the world financial crisis, the recession, and what it all will mean for consumers and workers from a ground floor, common man perspective. The shows are almost daily, are excellently reported, and the hosts talk to traders, economists, and all kinds of other really smart people in language that anyone can understand. Highly recommended:

Planet Money – http://www.npr.org/money

Also, if you want to keep tabs on how the government is doing with all of our money in these bailout proceedings (not well, unfortunately), you’ll want to read Bailout Sleuth.

It won’t leave you feeling all warm and fuzzy, but if you’re like me, you’ll get a kind of grim satisfaction of knowing which shit is rolling down which hill, how fast, and when it’s gonna land.

So good that I had to post it immediately. The best viral takedown piece of the campaign season, IMHO:

Update! Bonus “Wasssup!!!” video (McCain/Palin Pain Edition)!

Watch the castle of cards come tumbling down. From fivethirtyeight.com:

As for Palin, the incarnation of red-meat, know-nothing Christian nationalism, she turns out to be McCain’s single biggest mistake. The Republican Party’s immediate post-election future will be a bloody struggle over Palinism. It’s already started at National Review online, where the growing hysteria of the posts signals that the roof is falling in on conservatism. Everything that worked for forty years has suddenly not just stopped working, it has become self-defeating. Republican candidates, strategists, and pundits are like witchdoctors who keep repeating the old incantations over and over, their voices rising in furious shock, to no effect. That’s the sound of an era ending.

~ George Packer, “Interesting Times”

In their long national dominance based on division and fear-driven politics, the GOP couldn’t feel the ground shifting beneath their feet until it was too late. As the Dems take power in full force, they’ll be wise to not forget that fact.

Here’s Obama gently euthanizing the last feeble, delirious rabid howls of the conservative blowhard fringe and ushering in a new vision for the next few decades:

Speaking of delirious, you have to read this blog post on the Fox News web site by some tool named James P. Pinkerton. (Weren’t the Pinkertons the private bodyguard thugs in Deadwood?). This Very Serious Pundit asks (without irony!) why McCain isn’t exploiting the connection between Obama and Lucifer. Yes, that Lucifer. Worth the read, especially for the comments where snarky liberals and bible-thumping conservatives duke it out in a free-for-all comments cage match.

I love this – the whole slanderous, smearing, kitchen sink desperation of the GOP’s final days. I hope they get even louder, angrier and slimier right up until the very end when the massive electoral avalanche that’s coming rains down on their heads. I want the disgusting Rove/Schmidt/Cheney/Bush era that McCain has tragically embraced to be utterly and complete discredited, rejected, and written ignominiously large into American history books. Their worldview deserves utter repudiation for all of the all-too-real anguish and hardship that they have visited on the American people and the world.

P.S. Sarah Palin told James Dobson that God is anointing a win by Obama!

…it also strengthens my faith because I’m going to know at the end of the day, putting this in God’s hands, that the right thing for America will be done, the end of the day on November 4th.

I hope right-wingers remember that she said it’s God’s will when Obama takes his oath on the Bible in January, but I’m not holding my breath…

P.P.S. Thanks to the Trammps for the blog post title! This is seriously going to be my election night celebration song:

Thanks Amy and Lisa for the nudge to start posting again. I’ve been avoiding blogging for a few days in one of those malaise moods where I don’t feel particularly insightful, funny, interesting or generally worthy of human company. But, I guess that’s why you pledge to post once a day to knock yourself out of those moods, right? Anyway, I appreciate the assist from the Iowa contingent on getting back on the wagon. Love the covered bridges pics.

Politics is a language that translates the shifts in the assessments and priorities of the electorate into leadership and policy. As the polls show Obama’s substantial lead beginning to harden into something resembling concrete, it seems to be clearer that Americans have made the following judgements:

1) The current incarnation of the Republican party has run its philosophical, moral and leadership course. It’s finished. Americans resoundingly reject McCain’s whole-hearted embrace of the worst kind of unproductive and divisive political tactics that, as Rove and Bush have demonstrated, are useful only as an attempt to acquire and maintain power and are poisonous and completely inadequate when trying to actually govern. They are also overwhelmingly rejecting the selection of the disturbingly vacuous Palin as a cynical and bald-faced attempt to put a pretty face on the GOP’s philosophical bankruptcy and single-minded focus on retaining power.

2) Our national love affair with market-driven, trickle-down economics is over. Circumstances are forcing the government to actually buy a stake in major banks and start talking about massive government investment in things like infrastructure. Real wages have fallen for decades and the gap between rich and poor has grown exponentially, even as we were assured incessantly that the “money will trickle down because giving tax breaks to the wealthy creates jobs”. We are looking for a more equitable way to create some “rising water that floats all boats”, and we like Obama’s approach.

3) Our personal greed has left us with a nasty hangover and a bleaker near-term future. The crisis on Wall Street is only a symptom, amplified a thousand times, of the “me-first”, money-and-comforts-first-at-all-costs philosophy many Americans have embraced as our god-given right and that has now come crashing down on our heads. As we face the prospect of massive countries like China and India trying to follow our unsustainable consumption example and ruining the planet permanently as a result, we’re beginning to wonder if we left “better” behind in our manic search for “more”.

4) We have abandoned “we” and “ours” in favor of “me” and “mine”, and we don’t like the results. Our collective unexamined triumphalism has been exposed in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the misadventures in cowboy foreign policy by Bush, a self-absorbed poster child so completely in ignorance of his own, feeble, limited worldview that he still firmly believes history will judge his administration’s vast, horrifically bad succession of blunders as a “success”. We are shocked and dismayed to find ourselves suddenly reviled, marginalized and at odds with the rest of the stable/normal parts of the world community. We like people, and we want them to like us and see us as special, something to aspire to. The loss of that status has been hard on our national psyche.

5) We are tired of bullies, flashy and inauthetic showboaters, and incompetent blowhards without any restraint or common sense. The GOP isn’t getting this. On top of the past four years of a growing coterie of Republicans losing or being removed from politics for their criminality and bad behavior (DeLay, Foley, Abrahamoff, Gonzales, Libby, Allen, etc.), there have just this past week been GOP incumbents (Bachmann and others) in tight races doubling down on the same kind of outlandish claims behavior, and getting into even deeper trouble as a result. Events are forcing us to get serious, and we’re looking for serious leadership – so much so that Democrats are poised to take an unprecedented amount of seats in both the House and Senate.

With all this and more beginning to point to another historic realignment of our American experiment, a question has been arising on all of the political blogs I obsessively follow as well as in books and conversations. What caused this realignment, what will it look like, and what will be its impact on American history?

Here’s some interesting reading to get you started:

1) Janece picked up “Deep Economy” from the library, a book written by an economist positing that we’ve been by the idea of endless economic growth as a primary model of improving our lives to the exclusion of other factors that could contribute to a higher, longer-lasting “happiness index” in our national life.

2) “Blessed Unrest” by Paul Hawken uncovers a deep worldwide, uncoordinated movement for social and environmental change that has massive implications for the shape of our world’s political future. In Obama’s extraordinary grassroots-driven campaign, you can see the fruits of some of this new energy and activity and creativity emerge into the political spotlight of the most powerful nation on earth.

3) These interesting posts from the Booman Tribune talk about the implications of an FDR-style New Deal realignment with a Democratic/progressive government. The last time a party enjoyed the level of power the Dems are now looking at (1965), we got Social Security, Medicare & Medicaid, motor vehicle pollution control, the Freedom Of Information Act, the National Historic Preservation Act, the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act, and many others.

4) Rational conservatives are trying to grapple with their party’s future. See Ross Douthat, Daniel Larison, Andrew Sullivan and Rod Dreher for a look at the sane voices trying to lay the groundwork for a new incarnation of the Republican party. (For a humorous look into increasingly ludicrous and inane alternate reality of conservatives who think Bush was a great president, Sarah Palin is the second coming, Obama will have Ayers be his Secretary of Education and Wright will be chaplain of the Senate, and on and on, try the National Review. It’s like watching cavemen on a desert planet circling a dying star waving their clubs and shouting threats.)

5) There are smart progressives looking at things like healthcare, urban growth, urgently needed mass transportation initiatives, destructive food production methods, progressive foreign policy and other things that Obama and the Dems will probably be very favorable toward reconsidering. Bookmark Matthew Yglesias and Ezra Klein.

How about you? What do you think the country will look like after this political and cultural sea change sets in?

I got my absentee ballot today. It’s the most excited I’ve been to vote in a long time. Judging by the long lines and wait times at polling stations in the early-voting states around the country, I gather I’m not the only one. I need to check out the local candidates a bit more before I vote, but I’m raring to go.

Janece and I had a great conversation tonight about growing up. It’s weird to be still talking about that when you’re in your late 30s, but I guess it’s a process you go through your whole life, so…

We were both picking through some destructive stories about the world that we picked up along the way from our families or church or peers, stories that have persisted and had emotional, even physical, impacts on us.

I think my main story, at least the one that’s been floating to the surface, is that people are unpredictable and unsafe, and that they can’t be trusted. It’s a story that occasionally lines up with reality, of course, but that as a fundamental basis of how I live hasn’t been all that helpful or conducive to a full experience of life.

I guess the point is that growing up means taking responsibility for that childhood story, and any story from your past that arises, by understanding that you have all the power in the world to train yourself to live from a different point of view, one that is more powerful and that opens up more possibilities. That’s a process that can take time because when you’ve literally built your world on these stories – anything from what you chose to eat, where you live, who you married, your plans for your future – it can take a while to untangle all the fallout.

Anyway, I’ll dig more into this in a later post since I should be working and can’t right now.

In a nutshell, nothing changed. Outside of the partisans, every persuadable viewer came into this debate unhappy about the economy, unhappy about the 100% negative advertisements from McCain, not caring about Ayers or any of the other manufactured outrages by McCain’s camp, and looking to see what final info they could glean about the two men. The snap polls tell the story: Obama won, people liked him more than they did before the debate, and they feel he has the best answers to our big problems. McCain lost, people liked him much less (he lost a lot of favorability points) and feel like he’s irrelevant. As Nate at 538 said, “Congratulations, President Obama”.

So, with a decisive win in three debates, red and swing states turning blue all over the country, a juggernaut of a get-out-the-vote ground game, and a massive cascade of events adding to the momentum that is hurling him into office, what will the aftermath look like for President Obama and for our country? Some thoughts on some great articles out there:

1) Conservatives will splinter into roughly two groups: moderates/elites and a new Euro-fascist style far right. Great reading here and here. As their electoral disaster draws closer, the GOP has been dissolving into panic, accusations and blame – drawing the long knives and looking at each other’s soft philosophical throats, determined to dominate the future of the party. Conservatives made a Faustian bargain with Rove and Bush – trading their 8 year dominance for their dreams of a permanent majority – and now the fruits are just becoming evident. The elites are horrified at the ignorant reactionaries in their party, and Palin, whose political philosophy was informed by her connection with radical seperatists, and who is using her high visibility to egg them on.

You could see his party’s schizophrenic personality embodied in McCain tonight, veering wildly from fringe hate attack material like Ayers, ACORN and partial-birth abortion horror stories to reasoned, almost coherent screeds on the economy. Nate at 538 calls McCain’s patented Lizard Lips Lickâ„¢ a “tell” – a gambling term that means a physical gesture that gives away a players inner state – and has noticed that it happens every time he lies, and he knows he’s lying. He’s sold his soul to the right-wing of his party because he knew he needed to do that to have a chance at winning, but he hates himself for it and hates that he’s had to give up his stature and career reputation to do it.

2) Black and minorities will complete their permanent ascendance into our political and civil story. I defy you to read this comment on 538 and not be moved by its meaning for our future as a melting-pot country where not only our populace is mixed, but our political and civil life is infused with a new true story that, in America, anyone of any gender from any background of any color can ascend to and influence our most powerful offices and institutions. There will be a predicatble reaction to this from the unstable elements in our country who will become more virulent and dangerous, but our national mindset has been forever altered and their hate will no longer have the same kind of dominance in our country.

3) Women will also complete their ascendance. Hillary Clinton came on CNN to give reactions to the debate. Both Janece and I noticed how good she looked, how settled and focused she was. I think she’ll emerge as the next Al Gore and Edward Kennedy in shaping the Senate and the machinery of our government. There is a wealth of talent in the nation’s female governors – Sebelius, McCaskill, Napolitano – and I believe they will hold open the door for new talent to consolidate the gains women made in this election. Who knows? Maybe Obama’s own daughters will step into his shoes one day.

4) Our nation will get worse before it gets better, but it will return to a leadership position in the world, one with a different posture. We have been dealt a heavy blow the last eight years, and our mistakes from before that are also coming home to roost economically and militarily. We’ve lost confidence in our leaders and ourselves to make a difference in a world that seems poised to go on without us.

But we are about to make the right choice this year. In Obama and this realignment that’s coming on Nov 4, we as a nation have expressed our desire to engage with our neighbors and with the world, and build a different path. Obama will have enormous challenges, and I’m sure the first couple of years of his Presidency will have mixed results at best. From his speeches, debates, platform and organizing focus, I’ve gleaned that he is prepared to take the political hit and will take seriously his duty as the nation’s philosophical and operational leader to set our collective heads and hearts on a path to resolve these huge problems. “Respect. Empower. Include.” That is his campaign’s motto that every volunteer knows by heart, and I see no reason why that will not continue to be his call once in office.

One other point on this: I think we will see a general de-fanging of the dangerous and unstable leaders and movements around the world.

First, an America that elects a black man with an African/Arabic/Jewish-derived name and that will be aggressively rehabilitating its reputation (no torture, withdrawal from Iraq, closing Guantanamo, etc.) will be generating enormous good will with the world’s population who is actively looking for a reason to like us again. This alone will undercut the ability of a bin Laden or Ahmedinajad to inflame by demonizing us.

Second, I was struck, as always, by Obama’s preternatural calm under fire and the worst kind of attack, and it’s implications for our strategic future. Instead of being recklessly agressive in the attempt to be “strong” like Bush and McCain, he has an uncompromising, unruffled, relentless strength in pursuit of his objectives. One blogger I read said Obama’s campaign has been like a boa constrictor that Clinton and McCain didn’t even notice had encircled them until it squeezed the life out their campaigns. In the high-stakes game of facing down an Iran intent on a nuke or a Russia intent on re-coalescing its old Soviet borders – in fact, in all of the strategic military, social and economic stare-downs ahead of us in the next eight years – I’d rather be led by the boa constrictor than the adolescent hot-heads the GOP has put forward as “warriors”. The world’s leaders will underestimate Obama only at their peril.

Final thoughts: At the beginning of the debate, I got really nervous at how strong McCain came out. He was landing blows, he was crisp, he even appeared to be reasonable. I’m a Dem, and we’re used to losing, so I was tense – wanting Obama to stop being so squishy, feeling things slipping a bit. And then McCain burned out just as Obama was getting started. From a slow start he built on layer after layer of reasonable, reassuringly calm responses that kept the focus on his goal of connecting with voters and dealing with the issues. And in doing so, he won the debate and assured America of having the best fighting chance we could have asked for to tackle the challenges ahead.

Congratulations, President Obama.

The quote is by Louis Pasteur, and I was reminded about it when I read this post on Obsidian Wings a day or two ago:

Mark Twain: “The harder I work, the luckier I get.”

If Obama ultimately wins, I expect to hear complaints that he simply got lucky that the markets crashed. Indeed, via Fallows, I see that Steve Schmidt is already saying as much.

It’s true, Obama has gotten lucky in some respects. But he’s also made his own luck. Focusing on “luck” obscures just how strong his campaign has been. The Obama team’s long-term strategy and disciplined tactics put it in a position to reap the benefits of positive developments. Similarly, the McCain camp’s lack of strategy and discipline left it vulnerable to these same developments.

It was a great reminder to me that great achievements in any discipline – art, science, literature, politics – are almost always not the product of someone “getting lucky”, but of working hard and developing themselves until they mastered the mechanics enough to see a great leap forward.

On his road to developing an efficient light bulb, Edison burned through 3000 different theories on how to make incandescent light work, and tested thousands of other materials once he got the theoretical approach that worked. In his own words:

“Before I got through,” he recalled, “I tested no fewer than 6,000 vegetable growths, and ransacked the world for the most suitable filament material.”

“The electric light has caused me the greatest amount of study and has required the most elaborate experiments,” he wrote. “I was never myself discouraged, or inclined to be hopeless of success. I cannot say the same for all my associates.”

“Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.”

Tonight, as I think about what Janece and I want the next decade to bring, it’s worth taking these things to heart. The path to where we want to be will be built one brick at a time, and we’re guaranteed days or nights or weeks of frustration at points before we break through into something worthwhile. We’ll also need to resist the urge to short-circuit that process or give up on it, especially when it’s so valuable in teaching us many things we don’t know about the landscape we’re journeying into.

I’m settling in for a night of work. Been on the night shift for the past week. Being on the night shift sucks. This house is pretty noisy, even with a light-blocking sleep mask and earplugs, so my sleep in the day hours is a bit rocky and after a week I start feeling really draggy and soggy-brained. I also feel completely disconnected from the light and from the activity of the general populace, so I feel lonely and isolated. But I do get a hell of a lot done because there are absolutely no distractions so my work time is super quality. I just need to get a job. My freelancing days are over.

One bright spot, tho. I just found out that the website for WATG (www.watg.com) that I designed and had a major hand in strategizing just won First Place in the Platinum PR Awards held October 2 in New York. It was up against some pretty heavy hitters — Coca-Cola and Proctor & Gamble, among others. Not bad for a slummy ol’ solitary freelancer designing on an aging PC.

Janece and I talked tonight on our continuing conversation around what’s next. We both have accumulated a lot of skill in communication, teaching, team building, art stuff, design, etc. over the past decade, and we’re both antsy to uncover an avenue to use those skills that fits our passions. As much as this past decade was about life lessons and stress and financial turmoil, I want our next decade to be about exploration, experiences, memories, discovery and self-expression. Amira will be 14 a decade from now, and I want those formative years of hers to be filled with memories and impressions of parents that are energetic and life that is full of possibility.

Peggy Noonan is one of those Very Serious Peopleâ„¢ in the MSM who is paid to professionally pontificate on the the lives of Americans who live in towns a long way away from her DC digs. I think she has some great insights occasionally, but like every professional pundit she veers into self-parody from time to time.

Maria sent me a column of hers today with the subject line “Playing Frisbee on a Precipice” where she takes both campaigns to task from for not being “fully worthy of the moment”. Some excerpts:

…the Democratic presidential nominee isn’t 20 points ahead? Thirty? This should be a landslide. They say Barack Obama cannot “close the deal.” He hasn’t closed the deal because he’s still making the pitch, and to a wary customer who wants something new but isn’t sure this is the time to buy.

Both campaigns, in the closing stretch, seem not fully worthy of the moment. We are in crisis—a once-in-a-century event, as we now say. And what we got from the candidates, in this week’s presidential debate, was a bunch of gummy meanderings—smooth, rounded sentences so full of focus-grouped inanities that six minutes in viewers entered a kind of trance in which we almost immediately gave up on trying to wrest meaning from what was being said and instead focused on mere impressions.

It is asking a lot to ask a political animal to be thoughtful, because they find meaning in action. They are propelled through life by the force of their hunger. But now and then you want to see them think. You want to see them speak the truth. This is one of those times.

Now, I like Peggy Noonan’s general respect for her audience, but I find her a bit disingenuous. After all, she was a speechwriter for Reagan, with all the political associations and allegiances that entails. She was perfectly willing to bash Palin as a “cynical” choice off-camera at the GOP convention, and then appear to be tepidly in support of the McCain ticket since. Her columns over the past few months have veered wildy around from being impressed with Obama to columns like this one : “a pox on both their houses” kind of approach. That’s her right, of course. She is, after all, a pundit and pundits make their money by provocation and being contrarian and trying to stay relevant. I just think it’s worth keeping that in mind.

With that said, here’s a few thoughts I sent back to Maria on Noonan’s column:

(Read the rest of this entry…)

Families are a barometer and a measure of who we parents are as people – who we are at our most unguarded, most fundamental, most undisciplined, most authentic. You can tell a lot about a person by the kind of family culture that they nurture, and the energy that their family leaves in its wake, positive or negative. What’s more, you can understand them even more when you get a sense of how far they are, or are not, able to extend that sense of responsibility and family out to those who are not blood relations – our entire human family.

Joe Biden started his VP acceptance speech in Denver by acknowledging his son Beau, the Attorney General of Delaware and a National Guard captain who just shipped out with his unit to Iraq last week, and who gave his introduction:

My dad used to have an expression. He’s say, ‘A father knows he’s a success when he looks at his son or daughter and knows that they turned out better than he did.’ I’m a success. Beau-y, I love ya!

To which I add, “Amen”. When I look at my little family, my little budding “princess of light” (that’s what Amira Lucia means), I have to feel that despite all my mistakes, I’m doing something right. Here’s us today at Salisbury Park flying Amira’s new kite from my Mom.

Who you don’t see in the picture is the my beautiful wife who loving, perceptive eye gets great shots of Amira and I that we can treasure later. Janece and I used to knock our wedding rings together all the time and say “Wonder Twin powers… Activate! Form of… Happy Married Couple!” Nowadays, it’s more like “Form of… Moment Power Trio!”

Speaking of families and politics, the Obama sent out this video with the subject “Who Is Barack Obama?” as a response to all the goofy hyperbolic ventilating that desperate Republicans are doing now that they know they are going to lose, and lose badly. Take a few minutes to get to know our new First Family a little better:

This video made me so happy and proud of who America will be sending to the White House to represent the best of who we can be as a nation and to give us a sense of hope in the best of who we will become. America is going to experience a seismic mental realignment of our self-image and who we can be for the world on Jan 21, when the Obama family and their extended family walks in the front door of the White House for the first time.

EXTRA BONUS ELECTION GOODIE: Did you know that buying coffee at 7-11 can predict the winner of the election? Apparently you can buy a cup of coffee in a cup printed with the name of the candidate of your choice, and they tally the results. This would seem exceedingly stupid were it not for the fact that in 2000 the W cup outsold the Gore cup by just one percentage point, and in 2004 the tally was 51% Bush / 49% Kerry – the exact result of the election. This year? It’s Obama spanking McCain at 59-40. Check out the website!

(Hat-tip to Jack and Jill for the photo and videos, except for the one of me and Amira. Which was Janece. As I’ve already said.)

Not too much to say tonight. I’ve been working nights this week to get some delayed client stuff done.

Yesterday morning on a whim, I sent in an email to a local agency that Janece forwarded to me that does marketing for Christian organizations, mostly aid organizations. They’re not doing the most glamorous work in the world, but their efforts do help deserving organizations maximize their fundraising efforts effectively. Within 15 minutes, I got an email back asking if I could come in same day at 2pm for a sit-down. So, I didn’t really get any sleep today but I got a lot of info.

The agency is only 10 min away in Poulsbo, and they have a good benefits plan (medical/dental/vision, 10 holidays, 10 sick days, etc) as well as strong emphasis on work/life balance. Their official work day is 7.5 hrs with the understanding that in busy times there will be more work required. They say their work can get intense occasionally, but after having the stresses I’ve had for the last 10 years, I can’t imagine it would be any worse.

There were pretty impressed with my skill set and portfolio, which was nice to hear. I don’t often get to hear feedback from fellow industry professionals, so it’s nice to hear kudos. Their team seems low key and task-oriented. I asked directly about the work culture since the owners seem quite conservative. I think it wouldn’t be antagonistic to a liberal, especially someone like me who’s been around churches a lot and knows how to maneuver in that world.

The most intriguing thing was the fact that their new media arm is still really in its infancy, and it looks like I could have a impact there if I was positioned correctly and given the right amount of flex. They are just now starting to address things I’ve been working on for the last few years and they’re really needing a web design guru. If I could work out a position there that fit me well, combined with how close they are and their work/life emphasis, I would be pretty interested in pursuing the opportunity. It would get me a steady job with a range of work, keep my commute down, and still give me a lot of time to have a life.

Anyway, I’m glad I shot them an email. Next up, I still need to figure out what someone like me is worth so I know how to negotiate when/if the time comes.

Now THIS is pretty fascinating. McCain should have skipped Palin and chosen this guy for VP instead. (For one thing, he seems to know about 10 times more than she does.) Take a second to watch this video:

In this year, after these last eight years with the massive political movement Obama has fueled at full steam, finding this guy – in California, no less! – is like finding a red-crested unicorn in the middle of Central Park or something. He’s obviously smart and connected to the issues, funny and engaging, and gets a kick out of being the rebel in the room. Frankly, I’d sit down for a beer with this guy any day.

‘Course, he’s mostly wrong on the issues, although there’s a few things in there I’d agree with. And there doesn’t seem to be a follow-up video where he reacts to this lovely little incident at a Palin rally a few days ago:

As Milbank wrote, one Palin supporter hurled an unspecified racial epithet at an African American sound man, and told him: “Sit down, boy.”

Or this effort by the Montana GOP, one of what is surely going to be many more attempts at voter suppression:

The Montana GOP announced last night that it’s backing off its challenge to the legitimacy of thousands of voter registrations filed in predominantly Democratic areas of the state…

How’s that “the GOP is the inclusive party of morality, patriotism, respect and responsibility” thing supposed to work again?

I feel a bit sorry for the guy. He reminds me of the brave souls in the Log Cabin Republicans, attached to a party that doesn’t want them, despises them, and has institutionalized policies for decades that ostracize and devastate their communities.

But here’s what’s great. Thanks to the tireless work of Democratic civil rights activists and organizers over the years, and the groundbreaking Obama campaign that made a black President plausible to America for the first time, this guy can get recommended as the new face of the Republican party by a white staff writer for a conservative publication with a racist past – without irony (!) – and he can argue his point of view on the merits in the public square without being suppressed or presecuted (except by his exasperated friends). Heck, he could even run for president some day, if he were so inclined.

Even though this guy isn’t really giving props to where this freedom came from, somehow the whole thing makes me feel pretty patriotic and proud of our country. Where else but in America, eh?

Frankly, it would be pretty sweet to see him throw down in a political debate with this guy:

The cement shoes around McCain’s campaign, that is. As the few short days to the election tick away and public opinion hardens, these graphics, from the master poll statistician Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com, is all you need to know about where things are headed for Nov 4:

Basically, an Obama blowout. In terms of the race’s outcome, the only questions now are basically “How many electoral votes will Obama win by, and how many new Democrats will be going to Congress as a result?” I think that’s an important question because a decisive, more than 50/50 vote, will be the final crushing hammer on the morally bankrupt, race-baiting, cynical, highway-robbing GOP for decades to come. If Obama takes both the Presidency and has a strong Democratic majority in the House and Senate to help muscle in his agenda, we’re going to see a radical change in our country’s direction, for the better I believe.

So, in the face of that on-coming train, how did McCain change the game tonight? He didn’t, and he couldn’t. It was clear watching him tonight that he, like Palin, is simply not up to the task. His vigor and fire has withered to a grumpy snarl, his mavericky-ness has sunk with every approval point that Bush has dropped, his honor has been squandered in a nasty underhanded campaign, and his ideas (if indeed there were any) are pale, inadequate shadows in the face of what is confronting America right now. As Peggy Noonan said this week, McCain’s campaign is not big enough for America’s problems.

Further, his contempt of Obama has blinded him to just how formidable and implacable of an opponent he’s facing. Without realizing it, Obama has grown, and he has become small. And onstage at these debates, he’s the only one that does not seem to realize it. Used to accolades and being the scrappy lovable underdog, he’s now faced with a juggernaut of a candidate that is agile, will not give an inch, and most infuriatingly, comes off as coolly amused when McCain tries to lay a glove on him. McCain (and his campaign) wears this frustration on their sleeves, and it makes him seem petty and unattractive to the millions watching who want to be lead by a heavyweight.

Final thought: I thought it was incredibly telling how after the debate, Barack & Michelle were warm and engaged and connecting with the audience by shaking hands and talking with the audience for quite a long time. It’s clear by their body language and attentiveness that they don’t take these voters for granted, and that they take them seriously.

In contrast, John and Cindy were incredibly awkward, both with each other and with the voters. John pulled her in for a “camera hug” at one point, and she was stiff and obviously unprepared and uncomfortable with it. It looked like he was hugging a mannequin or something. He shook a few hands, but Cindy didn’t deign to shake even a single hand – not one – seemingly holding herself aloof by keeping her distance and her hands behind her back, and they both left early.

I don’t think this is coincidence. The GOP, with the McCains and Palins as their figureheads, see the American people as no more than demographics to be manipulated and misled with empty patriotic and moral cliches in a quest to obtain and consolidate power. They don’t like or respect or need them, except at election time. The Obamas, with their humble backgrounds and deep roots in social causes and grassroots organizing, are much more connected to the ebb and flow of American concerns, dignity and potential, and they see us as partners in the work we have ahead of us.

And as the national poll numbers, and the debate response polls show, Americans are more than ready to be led by leaders that truly care about them again.

Amira made up the word “plastigate” today (rhymes with “castigate”). Apparently, it means “sitting safe and sound inside the car”.

I don’t know where this came from, but with that kind of hilarious, I hope there’s more on the way.

There’s lots of things I’d like to write about tonight, but I’ve gotta catch up with all the work I didn’t get done from last week’s upsets.

Oh, and about that bailout, what Natalie said.