Arguably, if not for the global financial crisis, John McCain might have won his 2008 bid to be President. Of course, that's a big "if" and in fact, he lost this year's run for President. But, I still see a bit of a "win" in this for the Republican Party. Running against our less-than-perfect Presidential Candidate, in a time when nearly every major trend was going against our Party, the Democrat's phenomenally popular Presidential Candidate did not achieve a landslide win. And, our setbacks in Congress weren't as severe as they might have been. Although I think we would be foolhardy to "just stay the course", as a result, I do think we should take heart in that ... our fellow countrymen did not fully reject us.

Another "win" is a truly huge triumph for us, as a nation, in electing an African-American to be President. The most poignant moment for me, in this regard, was on TV shortly after Barack Obama was named President-elect. No, it wasn't seeing Jesse Jackson's crocodile tears. Nor was it seeing Oprah Winfrey's Cheshire Cat grin. It was watching Juan Williams report the event. There was a Black Man, who I often disagree with but who I highly respect, who never seemed to fully support Obama, who was simply reporting the event without adding his own personal views and he was struggling mightily to perform his job, while obviously choking up. I'll never know what its like to deal with the world from inside a dark skin but I've had some wonderful people in my life who I've seen treated very differently only because their complexion is different than mine. So, the reaction I saw this event causing in Juan Williams made me very happy for him and all those whose skin color is more like his than mine. It also made me very thankful for the progress our nation has made along these lines. 

Going from the sublime to the ridiculous, I see a "win" in "Lunch-Bucket-Joe" Biden being our new Vice President-elect. I wish I could say that this is because I'm comfortable with him being "a heartbeat away" from being our President. I'm not. The "win" in this is for our fellow-Republican (and my fellow-native-Hoosier), the unfairly maligned former Vice President, Dan Quayle. Even for those who thought Quayle was who the press portrayed him to be, Biden is now, obviously, the biggest Doufus to ever hold the office.

It's hard to deny that this election year held some clear losses, though. Two of them were in what is now my home State, Washington. Christine Gregoire was reelected as Governor. She is no Sarah Palin and that's not a good thing. And, Washington State's proposition in favor of Assisted Suicide passed. What a tragedy!

Especially since I consider Southern California to be "back home" and we supported Proposition 22 in 2000, while we still lived there, I was thankful to see this year's CA Proposition 8 pass. However, Proposition 8 passed 52% to 48% whereas Proposition 22 passed 61% to 39% just eight years earlier. This is a huge red flag! You can bet that the vicious and hateful anti-8 faction hasn't given up and what happens in California will have an impact throughout the country. So, we need to remain vigilant on this issue or it won't be long before we'll experience the same sort of catastrophe as we just experienced in Washington State with assisted Suicide.

So, now that this election season is done, what should be our next steps? Actually, I think the recommendations I made in my blog post during the week before the election, entitled "Take Back Congress 2010! Palin For President 2012!", are valid. However, I'd like to propose two specific actions that fit in with those recommendations:

As the first step for us to "find our backbones again", for the next 75 days, I'd like to see us unashamedly express our appreciation for the way President Bush and Vice President Cheney have unwaveringly sought to serve us for the past eight years.

And, as the first step in "proactively look(ing) to support those who are elected", we should focus on the economy. As I said at the outset, the Obama/Biden campaign's promise for "Change" in this regard was, arguably, the deciding factor in this election. It's our duty to not only support them in every way we can but to be watchful and demand that they deliver fully on their promise.