One of the first things I learned about politics, sitting in Mr Rupnow's current events class during my sophomore year of high school at Kettle Moraine, is that America historically elects only w.a.s.p's for president.

We just elected the first African-American President of the United States of America, I said, as I held my wife's hand watching Senator Obama's acceptance speech.

Amazing!

Yet, during the night as I watched the returns, I held my breath until enough states went blue and Obama could take a commanding electoral lead. I could not forget the Kerry defeat of 2004. For the first 90 minutes, McCain lead with one southern state after another capitulating red, beginning with Kentucky. Electorally, that was no problem if Obama could eat into some of the states which have voted republican in the past, like Ohio and Florida - which he did seemingly without effort.

When Charlie Gibson called the election quietly and almost non-nonchalantly for Obama, there was a moment of silence until my wife and I realized what he just said.

My wife and I promptly celebrated with a $4.99 bottle of champagne.

While its fantastic that Obama did indeed win – by an electoral landslide no less, and McCain conceded as honorably as he did, there is still much work that liberals need to do in raising social consciousness of how we should regulate social policy administrated by our government..

On that note, one the most evocative moments last night was watching the interview with Congressmen Jim Sensensbrenner at the Ryan campaign – who was re-elected over the less crazier choice of Constitution Party candidate... what's his name... Raymond? To the interviewer, Sensenbrenner stated something to the effect, that in order for Republicans to once again lead, they had to return to a party of low taxes and fiscal responsibly, good governance, and true social conservative values.

I wonder what Sensensbrenner meant by "true social conservative values." If "true social conservative values" is legislating policy predicated upon a religious worldview - then I'm afraid I won't be voting Republican anytime soon.

Presently, the Republican party is largely a party of social conservatives. The culture wars that social conservatives purposely engage in, like the banning of gay marriage or civil unions, creationism versus evolution, threatening a woman's health where abortion is concerned, religion over science, drug policy, are really just a whole host of quasi-religious or outright religious principles.

Republicans actively crusade for these principles at the behest of churches or religious right advocacy groups – forever negating the concept of small government by legislating these religious values and imposing them onto our collective freedom of conscious.

I do agree with the opinions of other pundits who state that this country is center-right, if not in economics and regulation, at least in the sphere of the social values I listed above. The banning of gay marriage in Arizona, Florida, and at time of writing this as returns trend, California – illustrates that liberals have much work to do in achieving equality for a class of citizens and restraining government off our bodies and in the choices that we make in our relationships, and the beliefs we wish to, or not, ascribe to.

This is why I admired McCain when he stridently stood up to the religious right, a key base of the GOP as the "agents of intolerance." If our democracy is to survive, it must not function as camouflage for one religion over another - even if that religion is one idiosyncratic variety of a larger whole.

That is why liberals, in this regard, are functionally libertarians – that is, more like true social conservatives then social conservatives are. Liberals are more prone to maintain and fight for the boundaries between religion and secularity.

Personally, my libertarianism expresses my social liberalism which in turn is informed by Humanism and the secular nature of our Constitution. Science, for me, illuminates reality, where religion only substitutes superstition and unfounded and untestable notions on reality.

Where will the Republican party go after this? Where will the Democratic party go after this?

I do not know, but I do have hope.

But it is clear to me, that both parties have a long way to go on these social issues.

Democrats are closer, while Republicans are far from it.

The other day, a co-worker of mine completed an online survey which was designed to help one decide what candidate you should vote for, Obama or McCain. She announced the results, yet, I could hear the trepidation in her voice over of it.

Because of this, I asked her if she planing to vote in the upcoming election. Not likely was the reply. I asked why. She stated that she did not have enough command of the issues and did not want to vote uniformed.

I can understand that feeling and applaud the sentiment. Voting in Chicago was a daunting task for me. That was the longest ballot I have ever encountered and compound that with that extra burden of trying to make informed decisions - I felt overwhelmed. Suffice to say, I did my best.

Sitting on the Fence. Photo © MC Pickard.

However, who really has a solid wonk-like command of all the issues involved? I try. But honestly, I do not know as much as I should. How can you? We all do our best when it comes to voting. Many cases, we hold our noses and hope that our selected candidates do not betray us and hold fast to the priorities that we find dearest to ourselves.

That's why I suggested she should prioritize her concerns. I stated mine. The Iraq War, terrorism, and the Supreme Court. I went further to suggest that once she established these priorities to research those positions of the candidates.

Left unspoken to my co-worker, I do trust Obama more on these issues, especially who will be appointed to the Supreme Court. That is not to say, my trust is uncritical. A McCain White House would only sightly tweak the Bush doctrine, only "reforming" it enough to make it more Bush than Bush could deliver, and continue the current Republican agenda of the last 8 years. As far as the issue of the Supreme Court, McCain sold himself out when he reversed his criticism of the religious right to kiss their butt. Buy one. Buy the dozen.

That aside, I also made the recommendation that if she needed to check her gut check, check out VoteHelp which I had written about earlier. I should have also added that she read FactCheck.org to compare the candidate's public statements to reality.

My co-worker is a soon to be mom and is a younger women in her early 20's. Look at your life. Who are you? Do you have family or friends in Iraq? Are you student? Business owner? Create a list of concerns that are more likely to affect your life.

Arbitrarily begin with three issues and once you come to some conclusion on those, expand from there if you can. Tally the number of times you agree or disagree with a candidate. If you can, try to ignore your personal feelings. Never let personal sentiment interfere with your judgment.

Basically, you want to draft a up list of criteria and then you want to investigate the merits of each. 

Lastly, vote!