Was John McCain joking when he said in his speech that after last night, now mothers from Arizona could tell their children that one day they could grow up and become President of the United States? When I watched his speech last night I thought it was an odd thing to say – because Arizonans don’t always immediately leap to mind when I think about groups of people who have traditionally been shut-out of the Presidency – but on the other hand, I dunno – have there been any Presidents from there? Maybe not.

Maybe I misheard the quote. It was definitely late. Was it a joke, or was he trying to tap into Hillary and Obama’s things about their “Historical Candidacies”? Is America ready for a Mormon, a Woman, a Black Man, OR, Someone Who Settled In Arizona When He Was Middle-Aged???!

Something just occurred to me about the phrase “Ready on Day One”, and how it’s never had any resonation with me whatsoever. I realized that it has to do with our current President, and the way that the country seems to have essentially resigned itself to “waiting him out”.

From my perspective it seems like everyone’s given up on G.W. doing anything else with his Presidency, and is just hoping that he doesn’t get us into a war with Iran before next January. That seems pretty sad to me – that the best we can hope for now is that he just manages to avoid another war... but that seems to be the best we can hope for with him right now.

But, it occurs to me, that if I’m willing to (glumly) accept that “W” will be occupying the White House and doing nothing for another eleven months, how concerned am I really going to be about what gets done on January 20th of next year? What difference is another week or so going to make at that point? We’ve already all written off all of 2008!

I like Obama for a lot of reasons, lots of which have to do with the long-term changes I think he'd be able to bring about.

I’d be willing to give him a few extra days next January to figure out where all of the office supplies are kept, and how to dial-out of the building, and stuff like that, if it was to really bring something more substantial about in the long run.