CHASING DOWN THE MUSE:Election sweeps in new color

Politics as usual. Hardly!

If last week’s election accomplished nothing else, it washed the country with a new color. Painted it blue. Deep, rich, luxurious blue. You could feel the waves of it — the shades of it — from sea to shining sea.

The country took a deep breath, left their easy chairs and let their voices be heard. Voices awakened as if from a deep sleep.

My polling place on Legion Street was lined around the block with 20- and 30-somethings, carting their children, mixed with the 60- and 70-somethings, all ensuring they be heard. It was a grand show!

Americans demanded a change.

With our ballots, we expressed our disgust with a nation mired in rhetoric, graft, corruption, greed, manipulation of information, misappropriations and a lack of clear strategies to end a tragic war.

We emerged on Wednesday morning, jubilant, if not shell-shocked, and recognized that the election battle was merely the tip of work that needs to be done.

We reigned in a president fattened on one-party rule, blinded by an idea that he did not need our consensus to change laws and rewrite government behavior.

He overlooked one half of the country with his decisions. He slipped church into state, forgetting our constitutional separation. He tore up the environment. He lied.

The battle of red and blue states has never seemed as divisive as during the last six years. The administration fomented a sentiment which permeated our country, that if you weren’t with “them,” then you were against America.

The task of healing this rift will take great diligence.

In truth, we are more the same than different. We share a belief in our families that is not of polarity, but of unity.

Our children, our parents, our cousins, aunts and uncles, and our best friends — no matter their sex, religion, color or political party — are the heart of what grounds us, of what is significant.

It need not be about you or me but about us, our essence. In truth, we are more purple than red or blue.

The results of the election were a call, not to the left or the right, but to the middle — to reason and to logic.

To that consensus that has been the backbone of this great nation.

Lagunans voted for their own measure of change. Although only one seat shifted in the City Council, the agenda was clear. We voted, as did the nation, against a power base with a single point of view — one of stifling stasis.

We voted for balance between the needs of growth and business and the coveted sense of an historical small town.

We expect that those given the privilege of power make decisions from an informed position.

That they work from facts — not innuendo, hearsay or stylistic preference.

The task of this reconfigured council will be the same as with the nation. A call to reason.

Extreme points of view — personal agendas — must yield to a blending of needs. Issues like a village entrance, central parking, and traffic circulation need to find their way off the paper pile and into measurable constructions. We cannot endure one more study.

We don’t want business as usual. We want water and environmental issues dealt with. We want to enjoy our beaches and swim in an unpolluted ocean. We want our businesses to reflect the needs of our citizens, not just the tourists who flock ever-increasingly to our beautiful city.

We want our schools to be notable for their educational achievements, not their high ranking in drug and alcohol abuse.

We want our police and fire departments to be well compensated for the heavy burden they bear in our safe-keeping. We want our homes to reflect our needs, in blending with those of our neighborhoods.

Election years shake up the status quo and open our minds to the power and responsibility of democracy. But the hard work of change and transformation begins when the ballots are counted.

It is up to each of us to participate in the processes that shape our lives. Our voices continue to be heard to the degree of our involvement.

At its core, the election of 2006 was a call to reopen America’s voice and let all of her citizens be heard. Yes, all the voices — those that we like and those that appall us — stretched across the nation, words to words, ideas to ideas, and minds to mind.

Voices with the strength to develop a dialogue that celebrates our common ground.