On Elections and Heroes

I am frequently asked a question.  

I live in an impoverished neighborhood, which will probably vote 95 percent for Barack Obama today. 

I just graduated from one of the country's most liberal theological academies, where the split today will probably be 80-20 in favor of Barack Obama. 

I voted for John Kerry in 2004, Harold Ford in the Tennessee Senate race in 2006 and for Jim Martin in the 2008 Georgia Senate race. 

"Why, oh why, Daniel," they ask, "are you voting for John McCain?"  

Today, was a day I thought would never happen.  It was a historic day for our nation and a wonderful day for me.  Election Day 2008.  November 4, 2008.  

That's because this election day I voted for John McCain.

In an election that is historic and wonderful for many reasons, mostly connected to the candidacy of Barack Obama, I am incredibly grateful for the chance to vote for John McCain. 

Although I thoroughly expect the nation to take a historic step forward and elect Barack Obama, I am also personally sad that John McCain most likely will never be President. 

Like many people I discovered John McCain in the runup to the 2000 Presidential election and followed him throughout the last eight years as one of the few people willing to display political courage. 

He lashed out when President Bush and Karl Rove smeared him in South Carolina for the audacity to have adopted a child who wasn't white.

He worked countless times with some of the most liberal democrats in the Senate - Russ Feingold, Ted Kennedy, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden - to pass bills he thought would benefit the country, even if they hurt him politically.  

He notoriously supported the surge in Iraq, when everyone else was running for political cover. 

It is only the most recent in a trend that has defined his political career - McCain has never been afraid to say the tough truth, even if it cost him a vote.  Some say that was only the McCain in 2000 - I ask them to re-read his convention speech when he called out his party on the convention floor or the primary race in Michigan - when he told Michigan voters the truth about the auto industry. Michigan voted for Mitt Romney. 

Political courage doesn't get you big crowds.  

Unfortunately the country seems to be going in a different direction.  Like many I have been disappointed by John McCain's campaign and his pick of Sarah Palin.  He has not run his best campaign, but I do not know that it would have mattered, with the excitement over Barack Obama, the most hostile media climate for a major party candidate since Watergate, and the economic downturn all conspiring against him. 

My father frequently laments that one of the problems with America is we don't have any heroes anymore.  That's not true, at least for me. 

I discovered my hero eight years ago on the campaign trail, fighting in vain against President Bush, and I've watched him fight an uphill battle against Barack Obama too. But long odds won't stop me from wearing my McCain hat and t-shirt in South Atlanta today.  

America may reject a former war hero.  But it will take more than one lost election to make me forget what I know - John McCain is one of America's bright lights. The past year hasn't changed that.