Change, to What?

cross posted at Right Michigan

The American electorate has spoken clearly, and Barack Obama will be the 44th President of the United States. He achieved this victory with a higher percentage of votes than either Bill Clinton or George W. Bush did in their elections.

He made Ohio blue. He turned Indiana blue. And Virginia, Florida, Colorado, and New Mexico. Michigan stayed blue as did Pennsylvania and New York and California. In the end this election was not even close to close.

Cokie Roberts on NPR is already calling it a mandate, and perhaps it is. It would be hard to argue with that assessment (even if it does come from the daughter of former Democratic congressman.)

Exit poll interviews indicate that the economy was the number one issue with voters. That is no shock. Few sectors of the American economy are doing well.

If the economy was the deciding factor in this election, how far does the mandate go? If the person left standing at the end of the election is the most liberal voting member of the US Senate, does the mandate pass out of the economic arena into all others?

Does a mandate on the economy equal a mandate for gay marriage or the Fairness Doctrine? Is a mandate on the economy the same mandate that allows for the restriction of gun ownership, union card checks, the confiscation of private property, a 25% reduction in military spending, DC statehood, Ayers-like educational initiatives, unconditional dialog with Iran and other terrorist states, the integration of world opinion into our own laws, and the possible ceding of the internet to United Nations authority (along with all the free speech restrictions that would cause?) Was this mandate a call to have electricity "necessarily skyrocket" and to join hands with Kyoto?

It is clear that the American people have chosen change, though the form and depth of that change I believe is still largely unknown to them. It is my firm hope that the electorate chose change out of giddiness, sheer ignorance, and desperation rather than any firm calculation--better that the voters be ill informed and scared than as diabolical as the leaders of the various movements that Barack Obama has shown his allegiance to.

Now that Obama will become President, will it be Thomas Jefferson and Samuel Adams that serve as his inspiration, or will it be William Ayers, Saul Alinsky, Jeremiah Wright and Frank Marshall Davis?

The people have chosen change, and that, I'm afraid, is for Barack Obama to define.