Favorite Politicians

The election last night was not just a watershed moment, but a tsunami. Living in California, I consider it to be an earthquake election.

President Elect Obama’s governing style is likely to be similar to his personality. Well known for his calm temperament in the face of tumult, I’m expecting that his gray hairs will be coming in at a faster and faster rate, but his temper will not be showing.

It has been difficult for me to relate to Barack Obama in the same way that I relate to other politicians. He has personality attributes that I could only wish to have at this point. I want very much to learn how to approach difficult situations in the same way he does.

Obviously, he is a favorite politician for me. But exactly how and why he is has not been easy for me to define. I’ll be writing more about this later on.

William Jefferson Clinton is the politician that wooed me from the Republican Party, and turned me into an enthusiastic moderate Democrat. With his engaging personality and whip-smart wife, I saw the Clintons as a much-needed change in the political arena.

Bill Clinton has always demonstrated himself to be extremely knowledgeable about virtually everything in government. I love the fact that he’s an ordinary citizen from Hope, Arkansas as well as Rhodes Scholar who was educated at Oxford and Yale on scholarships. It gives me hope that if my granddaughter is smart as a whip herself, that she can do virtually anything.

The Clinton presidency will be legendary in this world of terrorist attacks, financial markets collapsing, health care systems imploding, and foreign policy breakdowns. It stands as a beacon of the best of us, and how we can infact pay down our government’s debts while increasing the prosperity of ordinary Americans.

I seriously doubt that the impeachment process will be much more than a footnote in history against this great American.

Now that Clinton is no longer in office, the Clinton Global Initiative is helping to create new opportunities all over the globe in the areas of economic empowerment, health security, leadership development, and reconciliation between opposing factions. He is well on the track to the kind of after-presidency achievements of Jimmy Carter.

I’ve been extremely pleased with the performance of Joe Biden in recent weeks since he became the vice presidential nominee for the 2008 presidential election. However, that’s not where my admiration for him actually begins.

One of the few single parents in the Senate, Joe began making his mark on the national scene when he hung in there and took the oath of office in the hospital room where his sons were recovering from the car crash that killed his wife and daughter. Originally, Joe thought about refusing to take office but changed his mind through the encouragement of friends and colleagues.

Joe took a train between Washington, D.C. and Wilmington, Delaware every day for the majority of his time in office. Putting his family first wasn’t really the reason. For him, it was putting his country and his family on an even plane. His attendance and attention to his responsibilities in the Senate have been among the best on Capitol Hill. At the same time, his sons had him in their lives on a regular basis to eat with them, tuck them into bed, and share the stories of their daily lives.

There are women who think men will somehow not rise to the occasion when it is called for. I believe these daily trips home are likely at the root of his extensive knowledge about foreign policy and legislation of nearly any type. That train ride gives a long time to make calls, read over documentation, and in general to be about the people’s business. I imagine him in the seat of that train looking over the welfare of his own state and of the country, not being flashy, and not schmoozing with the Washington elite.

Joe Biden is my quiet hero. Not because he does not say anything, but because he has been ’so doing’ for a lifetime of service in the public eye.