A Final Post on the Election (Promise!) -- Who I Actually Voted for and Why

So we had an election last week, as I guess you know.  I was quite sure that I would end up going to bed on Tuesday night not knowing who was going to be our next President, and was about as surprised as Karl Rove when the media networks called the race for Obama at around 11:20 pm.  In the end, this close election was unexpectedly lopsided and Obama almost "made it look easy" to borrow a sports cliche that is completely inapplicable to the event because as of Tuesday morning there was really very little that Obama or Romney could do to influence the election.  

That being said, it was still pretty close.  Obama's margin of victory in many of the crucial states was razor thin, and as of a couple days ago Obama only had a slight edge in the popular vote tally (maybe 3 million or so - a mere 1% of the US population).  Upon reflection, there are only really a few things I think we really learned from this election:

1. The Republicans could really use a gut check towards the center.  
2. The Evangelical vote doesn't mean what it used to:  either the nation is growing more secular to the point where few people share that kind of worldview, or the Evangelical vote in and of itself is fractured between the Old Guard (Pat Robertson and Billy Graham) and new skippy-do-whippies (Rob Bell and a bunch of other people).  The Old Guard cares, perhaps, a little too much about who you are sleeping with and what kind of music you are listening to, where the new skippy-do-whippies (or perhaps more correctly labeled as the Emergent Church) are more concerned about spreading Jesus's message of love and living Christian values in a more corporate way.  
3. Romney obviously doesn't read my blog, because I never did get those doughnuts.
4. My desire to save some trees clearly outweighs any concerns about self-preservation I may have.
5. Obama can cry! He has tears! He is.....he is human after all.

I wish to elaborate a little more on point number 4.  I may have let it slip one time, but I do not, in fact, work at the non-existent Newport News Crackerjack Factory:  I work for Huntington Ingalls Industries - Newport News -- I think its pretty safe to say that without having DDS agents rappelling into my house and two-tapping me.  

At any rate, every time we have a national election I am confronted with the rather uncomfortable reality that a vote for the Republican candidate is typically in my best interest as a shipbuilder (which doesn't elaborate much on my job -- everyone at HII-NNS is a shipbuilder; I could be stocking the vending machines with crackerjack, or fixing leaky roofs, or playing the Goldberg variations for Mike Petters so he can get some rest during his lunch-hour; all of those jobs would still make me a shipbuilder, even though I am not welding plates or joining joiners or grounding things to the...uh...ground).  I am also confronted with the fact that I am a card-carrying member of the Military Industrial Complex who is simultaneously contributing to our defense and preparing our nation for future wars.  

I am not a pacifist, and I think the work I do is worthwhile, and I'm actually quite proud to contribute in my own very, very, very small way to our nation's defense -- though as veterans day is tomorrow I naturally give deference to those who have done so much more than I ever will.  But at the same time there is the reverse of the medal:  I view war as utter tragedy, and in a very, very, very small way I am taking part in my Country's ongoing romance with violence, death, and military might.  We as a nation may have soured on that romance now, but give us 10 or 20 years -- or less -- and I have a horrible feeling we will be at it again.  

Perhaps next time it will be for the right reasons...

At any rate, in an age in which we are so concerned about living out our values as inscribed on the rubber bands around our wrists and where eating a Chik-Fil-A sandwich becomes not only a gastronomical delight but an ethical dilemma, such a conflict can be rather disconcerting.  

That was at the heart of my indecision as a voter.  If I couldn't vote for Romney because the GOP is totally whacked out on their social policies, could I vote for Romney if I think it will make it a little bit more likely I will be able to keep putting food on the table for my family?  

Well, the day before the election I finally came to a rather elegant solution that left my battered soul in peace for a day:  I would vote for Jill Stein, the Green Party Candidate.  In this way I was able to vote with a nod towards my values (though admittedly the Greens are way, way left of where I am and Jill Stein's only talent seems to be getting arrested for various anti-establishment activities) but at the same time I knew that that nod would have no impact on my future in anyway because the Green Party had not a chance of winning.  

For Senate I voted for Tim Kaine because -- well, because he was running against George Allen.  That choice was an easy one.  Yet for the House I voted Republican.  This is a nod towards my self-preservation but also the belief that the people running on the Democratic Ticket didn't have the experience required to be a good congressmen, whatever that means.

As I gave my ballot a final glance I realized that it as incongruous as a lunch consisting of pork rinds and Diet Coke; I shrugged it off as the disjointed ballet of an unsettled mind, resolved to up my dosage of melancholia non magis, and looked towards putting this election behind me so that I could get on with the important business of building ships, raising a child, and writing (perhaps with an eye towards finally getting something published and getting paid for it -- stay tuned).