I remember the first time I ever voted for a presidential candidate. I cast my ballot in a shoebox, along with the rest of my pre-school class. I was torn between Clinton, Mommy and Daddy’s favorite, and Bush, who my teacher had recently informed me was born in my small town. Each of these things seemed significant as a 4-year-old, but what was more important was that at the end of the day I voted with the majority, I chose Clinton and I won.
During the presidential elections that followed, I learned more about the process, and all of the different reasons people base their choices upon. Eventually, I lost my luck and cast my faux-vote with the minority (or in some cases, the majority, i.e. Gore) and became bored. Somewhere between consistently losing, the uninspiring 8-year-reign of a president whom I had always felt robbed me of my winning streak and a budding skepticism for the choices my government was making, I lost sight of what democracy was all about.
Skip ahead to this year’s election, the first presidential election in which I was actually allowed to vote, the first election I felt a part of since I was too young to care and the first to convince me otherwise of elections being just another game on which to bet.
As I watched limousines, famed musicians and all the glitz and glam of inauguration day take place on a live feed in the GSU yesterday, I realized that the best part about this election wasn’t the records being broken or the history being made, it wasn’t about Oprah backing Barack, or even the fact that I placed my bet right this time and cast my vote with the winner back in November. Instead, it was about the genuine excitement surrounding the election, getting people interested, once more, in their government, the dedication from each of the candidate’s supporters and the restoration of the people’s faith in the democracy of this country, no matter the outcome.
People came out in record numbers today, not because they were winners or losers, but because they were American and eager to place their bets back on democracy, not on sides.
As clich’eacute; as it sounds, today we were all winners.
-Christine Cassis, MUSE Editor, Spring 2009
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Thanks for reminding us all of the real essence of ‘winning’. Keep up the good work. We all benefit and we all won yesterday!