There is a liberal contributor on the Delphi Forums (an online set of discussion forums) named Richard who attaches the following personalized suffix to his political posts: "Only 589 days left". Three days later it happily reads "Only 586 days left". Richard, like many of us, is counting the days until Bush leaves office on January 20th, 2009. The exciting aspect of this so slowly diminishing arithmetic is that it will eventually reach zero; the problem is that it is such a long time to wait. Of course, many of us hope for and many of us will work for the election of a Democratic President and Congress. Which leads me to my issue of this piece: Construction Zone.
I think that we have to consider what tasks a Democratic administration will need to perform to get America rolling again. For starters they have to:
1. Institute universal health coverage
2. Restore our ravaged environment
3. Rebuild our alliances with other democratic countries
4. Create a fairer society in dealing with the poor, minorities, and immigrants
5. Get us out of Iraq
6. Remove the influence of lobbyists and money in politics
7. Establish safeguards for electronic voting and stop voter disenfranchisement
8. Invest money in education to equalize opportunities
It is questionable whether the Democrats, who in the past six years have been more Demowimps (or Wimpocrats), will be up to the task, but in the ever narrowing difference between the only two realistically winnable parties, what other choice do we have?
