From November of 2004, with one minor edit.

[camwyn]

To Whoever Wins The Presidential Election Tomorrow:

Good morning, sir.

The electoral college hasn’t met yet, and so this won’t be official until they actually do, but I am going to assume that they’ll behave as they always do and vote in a reasonably representative fashion. I do not know who you are. You may be John McCain. You may be Barack Obama. You may be any one of a number of other people. It doesn’t matter. This is addressed to you as the winner of the highest office in the country, regardless of your identity as an individual.

You’re going to be President now.

Please stop and think about that for a moment. The office of President of the United States is an extremely peculiar thing. A Congressional Representative has the job of looking after the interests of his or her own district- a relatively small group of people among 270 million. A Senator has to look after the interests of an entire state, which is, nonetheless, a small group of people compared to the entirety of the population. A Governor has to take care of his or her state’s people at the state level; this may be millions of people, but it is still only one state. Governors, Senators, Representatives- all of them do their job best when they place the interests of a small group first and a larger group second.

The Presidential office does not work like that.

The President of the United States is the President of everyone in this country. Everyone. Not the people of one state or one district; not the people of one group of constituents; not even the people of one particular coalition. EVERYONE. The President is the head of the executive branch of the government, and as such is responsible for the signature and enforcement of laws across the board. Not the laws he likes; not the laws that will benefit his pet programs- ALL OF THEM.

A Senator is senator of a state, a Governor is governor of a state, but the President is President of everyone.

You have been chosen, by fair means or foul, to look after my interests. I am, by and large, a liberal with a tendency to vote Democrat, though this is not guaranteed. You have also been chosen to look after the interests of the largely Republican group of people I work for. They have money. I do not. You have been chosen to enforce and uphold the laws that make their trade and living possible, for the prosperity of the country. You have also been chosen to enforce and uphold the laws that make it possible for the people of Youngstown, Ohio to keep building cars and feed their children. You are the only thing standing between the United States and fiscal ruin at the hands of a Congress full of overconfident men and women, who may be of your own party this year, but not necessarily next year, or the years after that. And yes, I do say overconfident; I cannot remember a time when Congress was not overconfident.

Remember this! You cannot act as if you were your own person any more. You are not. You are, for the next four years, an office. Put aside your personal beliefs and look at your responsibilities! Yes, do your job with the promptings of your conscience guiding you- but understand that your conscience must speak for everyone, for the good of two hundred seventy million people both now and next year and five and ten and a hundred years from now.

Perhaps you believe in the imminent Second Coming of Christ- what of it? He Himself said that it was a poor servant who did not use his gifts to improve upon everything his master had given him. You cannot act as if the Master is never going to come, but neither should you act as if he is coming immediately. People have been wrong about His return before. Would you take that chance, and ruin the country He has delivered into your hands because your belief was not quite right? I do not think He will look on that kindly.

Perhaps you believe that the United States ought to be more concerned with the opinion of the rest of the world. In the modern economy this is so, but think for a moment- we have done remarkably well in the past. We can doubtless do so again. We should not allow ourselves to cringe and fall at the feet of other nations simply because they are other nations. We can do good things, we can do AMAZING things- but we should do them on their own merits, and not allow our national conscience to be delivered into the hands of nations that, in the past, we have surpassed. Yes, we need them, and yes, we have treated them badly, but that is no reason to assume that they naturally know better than we do. Be careful. Watch where you step, because you no longer step with your own feet but with the feet of a nation. George Washington wanted us to avoid entangling alliances; while this is no longer possible, we must be as careful as possible lest the help we need to make this world a better place come at far too high a price. Be polite and repair relations where you can, but remember that the rest of the world is composed of human beings. They will take whatever advantage they can get, just as Americans will. Don’t give away any more than absolutely necessary.

Perhaps you think the war in Iraq is of cosmic significance. Perhaps you don’t. I don’t know, and I don’t care. All I will say on this is: you are NOT the best military man in Washington. If you were, you wouldn’t be running for President. You’d be wearing a uniform. For the love of the Force, listen to the people wearing uniforms. You may have fought in a war or you may have served on American soil, but either way, this is NOT the same war that happened thirty-plus years ago. LISTEN TO THE PEOPLE WHO ARE FIGHTING NOW. Take your strategies from those who are ‘on the ground’, from those who know what they are seeing and what is going on NOW. You do not have to fight the war you were in, or the war of your father. You have to fight the war that is in front of you- and, sadly, the wars that are yet to come, because there is no way that the current situation can lead to a lasting peace.

I had more to say, but I had work to do, and it derailed my train of thought. You, too, have work to do. More now than ever before. Learn what you can and do what you must, but remember: you are human, and you will make mistakes. You are human, and you HAVE made mistakes. Acknowledge them. Admit them. Do what you can to repair their effects. Do not assume you have always been right. If you are a Christian, then your faith declares that no one is good except God alone, and that no one has ever always been right except one man. Unless you speak Aramaic as your native language, you are not him. Therefore, you have made mistakes. DEAL WITH IT. You will make mistakes. DEAL WITH THEM.

And beyond that, remember this one thing, when you look around you and see that your policies have succeeded beyond your wildest dreams, or that they have failed and brought pain and suffering to uncounted millions, or that they have kept things as they are and given people a measure of relief from uncertainty:

You are mortal. You will die. The country will go on.

That’s all I have to say right now. I’ve got more work to do. So do you. Good luck with yours, sir.

---

Having said that I now have a message for those of y’all reading this who are NOT the winners of the Presidential election:

Anyone who is eligible to vote in tomorrow’s Presidential election, who has not yet voted, and who FAILS to vote tomorrow (or by the deadline for absentee ballots, whichever comes later), deserves to wake up and find out the Electoral College has gone mad and handed the country over to the Natural Law Party.

Thank you.

Comments

[innerbrat]

I do not know who you are. You may be John McCain. You may be Barack Obama. You may be any one of a number of other people
You really wrote this four years ago? Wow.





*runs*

[camwyn]

I consumed so much caffeine before writing it that it allowed me to SEE THROUGH THE VEILS OF TIME.

*solemn nod*

[innerbrat]

I am in awe of your clairvoyant skills and am shocked you haven't been contacted to work for a presidential campaign, or even the White House itself.

[camwyn]

They don't like my deodorant. It happens.

[innerbrat]

I KNEW the US government hated Lush. They confiscated mine, once.

[camwyn]

When I was on the Hurricane Katrina job, the head of the disaster IT group asked one of my co-workers if I 'smoked drugs'. As nearly as we could figure out, he had caught a whiff of my LUSH bodywash with patchouli in it and leaped to the wrong conclusion.

[innerbrat]

Might explain the issue. I wasn't arrested or anything.

[sdelmonte]

Bravo!

[leeshajoy.livejournal.com]

*salutes* My folks and I are going down to the courthouse this evening to do the early voting thing.

[hangingfire.livejournal.com]

Beautifully said. May I link?

[camwyn]

Sure thing.

[paradisacorbasi.livejournal.com]

"by fair means or foul" -- *cringe*

[camwyn]

I was in a very bad mood at the time of the original writing and had no room for assuming that things would go ethically or well.

[paradisacorbasi.livejournal.com]

The problem is, it's still an accurate statement this year, too.

[bodldops.livejournal.com]

*snorks at the last bit*

Are you and Dr. M in the VMTH Internal Medicine Service trading e-mails or something? He's a South African transplant, and so enormously pissed he wasn't able to qualify in time to vote in the election. So he's pouncing on random students in the halls and demanding to know if they plan on voting.

[camwyn]

Nah, I just get tetchy about that kind of thing on principle.

[sdelmonte]

I would love to sic you on one person I know who is an extreme libertarian who believes that not voting is appropriate and who will swat you down if you tell him otherwise.

[camwyn]

Gaaarrgh. Vote for bloody Optimus Prime if you have to (G1 Optimus qualifies for the office of President on the grounds that he and the other Autobots were resident in the territory of Oregon at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, and then again later upon Oregon Territory's joining of the Union, which is laid out in the Constitution as being equivalent to being born in the United States). But vote, dammit, or you're not even expressing contempt for the system, you're just too fricking lazy to deserve the franchise.

[vivien]

Exactly.

It infuriates me that people think it's okay to opt out of one of the easiest, most important responsibilities a citizen can have.

Well said, Cam!

[slarti.livejournal.com]

Since most of my employer's customers are newspaper conglomerates, we just had to discuss scheduling having Operations and Engineering staff watching during the overnight and early morning, just in case...

...And then, ten minutes later, also realized that we should also plan for each of us having the time to actually go out and vote. Always the little details...

[agoodshinkickin.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this.

[wanderlustlover]

You are amazing.

*solemn*


*rereads*

[drharper.livejournal.com]

*standing ovation*

You ROCK like a MAD ROCKING THANG!

[ceitfianna]

Woot, yes!!

[nesmith.livejournal.com]

You just reminded me that unless I want to wait until my roomie gets home, I'll have to find my bike lock so I can ride up to the polling place.

[dragonwhishes.livejournal.com]

*claps*

[moofoot.livejournal.com]

Amen! Very well said (and still relevant even with your future seeing powers!) Cam.

[vivian-shaw.livejournal.com]

Re: failing to vote, YES A THOUSAND TIMES YES.

[funkicarus.livejournal.com]

here, here.

especially to the very last bit.

[vincentursus.livejournal.com]

Admittedly, the question that comes to mind is:

Does the Natural Law Party exist in the US?

[camwyn]

Hm. Now that I look it up, they appear to have thrown in the towel in favour of a complementary governmental system they call the United States Peace Government.

Still.

[spritelord.livejournal.com]

You say Natural Law Party like it'd be a bad thing.