November 9th - the day after election day. I did not watch any of the returns last night...just refusing to see taking head after talking head giving statistics early in the game and saying they couldn't predict the results yet. Nope....I read a book, talked to a friend on the phone and watched HGTV before bed.
I woke this morning to see that the results so far were, frankly, much more positive than I had feared. The voters' common sense in some states held strong and send some of the more unqualified candidates packing.
One of the first things I did read this morning was a letter from Heather Cox Richardson, history professor and author that I have been following since 45 took office and she began to write about current day America from a historians perspective. It's been helpful all along this bumpy road.
Today she compared this mid-term election to the "momentous election of 1884." I won't even begin to paraphrase what she said about that (read it for yourself please!) but part of the letter was a poem written by Walk Whitman:
"If I should need to name, O Western World, your powerfulest scene and show,
"Twould not be you, Niagara - nor you, ye limitless prairies - nor your huge rifts of canyons, Colorado,
Nor you, Yosemite - nor Yellowstone, with all its spasmic geyser-loops ascending to the skies, appearing and disappearing,
Nor Oregon's white cones - nor Huron's belt of mighty lakes - nor Mississippi's stream:
-This seething hemispere's humanity, as now, I'd name - the still small voice vibrating - America's choosing day"
"America's choosing day".....I think, from now on, I will have more confidence in the electorate and the fact that so many know we hold our democracy in our hands.
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