Putting A Plain Politician In Perspective

Goodbye, Inauguration Day. Hello, Obama Day!

That’s the hope of some Obama supporters in Kansas who are organizing “Yes We Can” rallies to “secure a national holiday in Obama’s honor,” according to the Topeka Capitol-Journal. They also plan to serve “Obama cake” at the local McDonald’s during the swearing-in.

“Obama cake.” Goes great with Kool-Aid.

Barack Obama may be the King of Cool, but his followers are afflicted with brain fever. Fans faint at his campaign events. Harvard academics want George Bush and Dick Cheney to resign immediately. His transition team co-chair told Tom Brokaw she wants President-elect Obama ready “to take power and begin to rule day one” (emphasis added).

Folks, calm down. It’s a presidential election, not a regime change.

Viewed as part of the American story of race relations, I agree that this year’s election is a moment of great history. But as an election, it was, well, just an election.

Around 130 million voters turned out, or 61.2 percent of registered voters - 1 percent higher than 2004, but lower than in ’64 or ’68.

The Republicans lost and the Democrats won. Unusual, yes. But given the terrible economy and an incumbent Republican with poll numbers slightly above Julio Lugo’s batting average, is anyone surprised?

Meanwhile, Obama could only muster 52.6 percent of the vote, even after the Wall Street meltdown and outspending John McCain by $100 million in the last weeks of the campaign. A solid win, but hardly historic.

We’ve managed to pick 42 presidents before (43 if you count Grover Cleveland twice) without declaring any holidays before they even took office. Let’s calm down.

My mother-in-law, smitten with Obama fever, will have none of it. “This was more than an election,” she told me last weekend. “Obama’s going to change things. Really change things.”

She could be right. Obama could be a transformational figure, a transcendent being, perhaps even (as his most fervent followers believe) a “light-bringer” who will change the entire world. I don’t know.

What I do know is that Obama is a politician. He’s been one since at least 1996, when he knocked his own mentor off the ballot and took her state Senate seat.

He’s a politician who voted “present” 130 times rather than vote “yes” or “no” on tough issues. He’s a politician who made Siamese twins of Bush and McCain, two pols at odds for eight years.

And you know what President-elect Obama is going to do? Act like a politician, of course. And his supporters will be heartbroken.

The “Obama Day” neophytes remind me of the naive dog lovers who voted to shut down greyhound racing here in Massachusetts. Now they’re stunned that the owners are just going to let the dogs race elsewhere.

What did you expect? That the morning after Question 3 passed, dog lovers would descend on Wonderland, fling open the cages and cry “Be free!” as the dogs spent their remaining days frolicking on Revere Beach?

These are elections. They don’t repeal the laws of supply and demand, or change the market values of our homes or - despite what our future first lady might say - heal our souls.

Just ask the voters of Massachusetts who heard Deval Patrick say “Magic can happen here,” and elected him our governor. It’s been two years, and we’re still waiting for that “magic.” What we got instead was 2,000 new government employees, a $500 million tax hike and a busted budget.

Our plans for “Deval Day” are temporarily on hold.

-- Michael Graham, talking like the last reporter left in the room, while writing for the Boston Herald.