The XX Factor: What women really think.

Let's Go Home

Forgive me, but I can't be bothered with Palin anymore. I want to linger with the victor. As I've thought about Obama's speech on election night, and his demeanor since, the word that has stayed with me most isn't the names of the groups he said he hoped to unite (blacks, whites, gays, straights, etc.) or the particular policy proposals he reiterated. Rather, it's the name of one of the temptations he hopes we'll avoid as a nation going forward: "immaturity." 

It's a striking word for a politician to use (along with the more customary "partisanship" and "pettiness" ). Reading the Newsweek series about the campaign, I was less interested in the latest revelations about Palin's wardrobe than those about the sheer childishness of the Hillary and McCain camps: the toddlerlike tantrums, the puerile infighting, the impulsiveness, the adolescent refusal to accept responsibility for anything that went wrong. Many commentators, of course, have noted Obama's self-containment, his self-discipline, his unflappability. His campaign's motto was No-Drama Obama (i.e., no teenage theatrics). But isn't this just another way of saying that Obama is that rare thing in recent American politics: a grown-up as opposed to a mere adult?

By contrast, Bush, McCain and Hillary remain, quite literally, children. One or both of their parents are remarkably still alive. Indeed, what struck me most about Obama on election night was how alone he was on that stage, except for his own wife and children. (Even an aged Biden could hold his mother's hand.) And I wonder if, even more than race, this unusual parentlessness for a man Obama's age hasn’t contributed to what I regard as his singular strength and virtue in our youth-obsessed culture: his maturity. Yes, McCain was older and more experienced, but in this election, he actually came across as less mature. The youth vote went for the grown-up.

Obama's election may have finally closed the chapter on the 1960s, by which most people mean the debates over Vietnam. But born as he was at the tail end of the baby boomers, Obama, I think, may have also turned the page on the extended adolescence of his generation. In many ways, the last eight years have felt like one of those teenage parties where the grown-ups are absent and things have spiraled dangerously out of control. Countries, like kids, need and want limits. So, while I've been overjoyed this last week as I've watched a confident and competent Obama begin to assume power, what I've felt most, I've suddenly realized, is sheer relief: A responsible adult has finally showed up to shepherd everyone home.

Bush's Weird Message

It wasn't at the top of my mind, but I did wonder how the incumbent would respond last night—just as I've found myself wondering over the last two months what it could possibly feel like to be a sitting president whose eight years are now almost universally prefaced by the adjective "disastrous." Bush's opponents use it, and so do his supporters, and even if he never reads any newspapers—and seems barricaded out of sight these days—it's hard to believe he has been insulated from the devastating verdict.

Yet to carry on, I suppose he has to be, on some level, deaf to it and to the drama of a succession that is about, front and center, his own failure. Certainly his congratulatory message to Obama last night sounded singularly out of tune—and not just because it was a night on which the candidates themselves so eloquently captured the spirit of historic significance. "What an awesome night for you, your family, and your supporters. You are about to go on one of the great journeys of life. Congratulations and go enjoy yourself.'' From the adolescent "awesome" to the self-actualizing bromides to the flippant "go enjoy yourself" (what phrase did he really have mind?), the well-wishing was unsettlingly off-pitch. So off-pitch that I wonder if we could be hearing the deep bitterness of a man belatedly aware of how derailed his own journey has been.

But-how disorienting is this: We don't have to think about him anymore.

The Mother(s) of All Elections

I‘m afraid I hear “Sarah Palin’s not going anywhere” as more of a threat than a promise. But I’m with both Rachael and E.J. when it comes to the glory of voting. In fact, after casting a ballot at my local public school (which had a Sesame Street-level vibe of picturesque diversity and neighborly goodwill), I walked to a nearby hospital and gave blood, just to keep that vaguely civic buzz going.

And as long as we’re pitching cornballs, Melinda, I might as well hurl this one out: Now that I’m a parent—and this is my first presidential election since becoming one—I have a whole new investment in this process (like I’m voting for two now, and whoever wins had better goddamned well not wreck the future for my kid). I also, to my surprise, find myself identifying less with the candidates on this excruciating last day than with their mothers. (This happened during the Olympic Games, too; I’d see Nastia Liukin’s mother watching from the stands and nearly faint from anxiety.) Can you imagine the pride, the love, the fear (for their physical safety), and the sickening suspense you’d feel if it was your kid occupying this role on the public stage (even if that “kid” was 72 years old)? It occurred to me when Obama’s grandmother died that, of the four presidential and vice-presidential candidates, Obama is the only one without a living mother, someone to cast her vote for him, hold his hand if he loses, and kvell like nobody’s business if he wins. The fact that his grandmother, who played that role in his life for so many years, missed this election by a matter of hours will surely be a sorrow he’ll carry forever. If my daughter ever runs for president, I’d drive a bargain with the devil to be there to see her win or lose.