Florida's Electoral Do-Over: Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun

By the time John McCain makes his concession speech, we’ve already forgotten about him. Oh right — that guy! McCain, I now realize, was always irrelevant. The election was a referendum on the American experiment. In a time of peril, we faced a stark contrast: reason against superstition, tolerance against tribalism. The results are in, and they are positive. We made the right choice. And we did it in a fucking landslide.

Early the next morning, we go to the same beach from 2004. Floating beneath an azure sky, palms swaying gently, the enormity of an Obama presidency sinks in. Commentators have already reached back through time to define the significance of the moment. The Reagan chapter of history is closed. The civil rights movement reached its mountaintop. The culture war sat up in its coffin, said boo, and retreated to its final resting place. The North finally won the Civil War.

Hyperbole, all. But why not take it a step further? Floating out there in the Atlantic at dawn, I declare the election to be nothing less than the triumph of good over evil. Yeah, that’s what it was. An epic battle, like at Dunkirk, or in the fires of Mt. Doom. And just like then, the white hats won. So when you turn on the television tomorrow and they tell you that McCain lost because he changed messages, or couldn’t organize his team, or raised too little money, don’t listen. Because that’s not what happened. What happened was McCain chose evil. And good won. The waves make this thought go down easier. The spell is broken. The nightmare is over. And the sun is rising from the ocean over Obama’s America.