University of Dayton - MyLife

I Love Democracy

It's Election Day! After months of campaigning and millions of dollars spent by each candidate to get their message out there, it's finally time to see what this comes down to. I remember the past three elections before this one pretty vividly, but this is the first one I've been able to play an active role in. Being in college during this time is great, too. If I had a dime for every political discussion I've been part of for the past few months, I might be able to pay off next semester's tuition. Seriously. There's nothing better than getting into a good, intelligent conversation about politics with some of your best friends. However, up until recently, I was never the type of person who enjoyed talking politics. In fact, I tried to avoid it at all costs. I especially remember the election four years ago, when I was in AP Government as a senior in high school. The election is all we talked about for the first few months of school, and I hated it. I wasn't able to vote then, anyway, so why should I have even cared? But it's four years later, and here I am, excited to see what the results will declare tomorrow, excited to see who our new president will be.

Although this process is fun, it's also been very frustrating at times. I've been challenged to truly evaluate my core beliefs and see what I believed would be the best for our country, instead of just listening to who my family/friends were voting for. One time I was so fed up with the biased media and propaganda that I joked to my friends I was going to vote for the Green Party candidate because I didn't want to vote for either of the major ones since I couldn't find one who aligned perfectly with my own beliefs.

However, I recognized the privilege of democracy, and used it to voice my opinion, by voting as a conscious and faithful citizen in the best way I could. It was a tough road there, but I was so thankful to finally fill in that absentee ballot and let my vote make a difference in Ohio. Now all that's left to do is wait for the final hours of the polls to close and for the political analysts to tell us who the new president of the United States is. I know the first thing I'm doing tomorrow morning is looking up the New York Times online to read the front page headline. Let's just hope this isn't another repeat of 8 years ago when we didn't truly know who the president was until December. That would be a disaster.

Nov 4, 2008 6:39 PM Permalink