E-day...

At last.

At long last.

The day many Americans have waited for since 2000. Today is the de facto day when the current administration cedes control of the government to its successor. No matter who wins (disclosure – I voted for McCain) there will be substantial change in Washington, DC.

I think the campaigns were conducted well. I think the media slant towards Obama was disgraceful. There will be an endless series of post mortems on this election, some of which will be very good and useful. Many of which will be partisan whining or gloating. I shall avoid the latter.

CBS has posted a few questions to ponder about the election. I do not intend to watch anything on television about the race tonight. I will prefer to read about it on the morrow in The World’s Worst Newspaper^TM, also known as the Atlanta Journal Constitution. The new President and almost certainly overwhelmingly Democratic controlled congress will step into a number of challenges.

1) The conflict in Iraq is almost done, it appears we have been victorious. How do we manage this transition properly?

2) Afghanistan requires more attention and non-military support – including a lot of diplomatic support from Pakistan.

3) Iran remains troubling, although there may be more posturing here than credible threat. They have been hit by oil price collapse and the dearth of capital.

4) The economy. This elephant in the room is an unbelievable item to tackle. Some changes seem easy – fix mark to market accounting. Other challenges are much more daunting – how to revise the tax code fairly. Senator Obama’s plan, as is, will make things worse.

5) The environment. Some would classify me as an AGW denialist. I have personally spoken to real climate scientists who are convinced of AGW (anthropogenic global warming) and others who are more reserved. Bottom line, maintaining our environment is critical to our survival – fishing grounds, potable water and the like are essential. A sound energy policy (alternate fuels, nuclear power, R&D credit) is a key component to this issue.

6) Everything else. These include health care, immigration and foreign issues like Russia and Africa. We need to allocate the appropriate resources in these areas. Health care needs support (McCain’s tax credit is preferable to Obama’s bureaucracy) in the area of funding, tort reform and more preventative approaches. Immigration requires a flexible policy, acknowledgement of illegals in country (some type of amnesty / path to citizenship / guest worker) approach.

Russia may solve itself via the economic crisis and their misstep in Georgia. Africa requires some UN / US involvement which would include armed forces. Diplomacy has failed in the Congo and Sudan. Millions of innocent people are at risk and must be protected.

Other than that, the next four years should be a cake walk!

I will also admonish those whose only existence seems to be to decry the present administration to take a step back and take an objective look. There is much to fault the current administration for in its tenure. But a lot of the criticism is either erroneous or undeserved.

At least after today I can talk about it in the past tense.