*It’s just me, sitting at a round table. Actually, not even that. It’s my desk. L-shaped.

In no particular order, and so that I can stop listening to my own voice in my head, here are some stream-of-consciousness thoughts on the election.

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This is being pitched as a landslide, and it was absolutely a decisive win. Let me say that again: Decisive win. He cleaned McCain’s clock. No question. But let’s be honest: Obama won in a year that was the Democrats’ to lose. He replaces a president with an approval rating of about 25%, and he beat an old man who ran a pretty disjointed and uninspiring campaign. For Republicans to win this race, they would have had to do basically everything right. And they certainly didn’t. I’m just saying, let’s have some perspective on what happened and what was likely to happen.

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I hope that conservatives will not succomb to the kind of childishness that we’ve seen from the Democrats in the last eight years at every mention of Bush’s name. Obama is our president, and we should honor him as such. We can give him credit for his successes and criticize him when he’s wrong. But let’s try to be classy about it, and remember that if things go well for our country they go well for us.

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Christians, especially, have a duty to respect and pray for our President. We should not pray that he gets humiliated, falls on his face, or screws things up so badly that he gets tossed out in four years. We should pray that he will govern wisely, that he will listen to good counsel, and that he will learn from his mistakes and work for the good of the country. We should most certainly pray that God will change his heart on the issue of abortion.

***

Praying for and honoring our President as our President is not mutually exclusive with using the political process to work for what we believe is right. So I hope that conservatives will fight. I hope they will be respectful of President Obama, and that they will fight tooth and nail against some of the things he has promised to do. I hope that we won’t take tax increases, the Fairness Doctrine, government-run health care, and especially the Freedom of Choice Act lying down. Filibuster, speak to the people, use parliamentary strategy, whatever it takes that’s legal and ethical. I hope we learn from this election, and the last few years, that we will not succeed by being Democrat Lite.

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This may prove to be the election where left-leaning evangelicals become useful idiots for the Democratic Party. There is room for debate on many issues, but on abortion there was a clear choice in this election, and many evangelicals voted for a man who was the most radical presidential candidate in history on that issue. If the Freedom of Choice Act passes, we will partly have those evangelicals to thank. (Some have argued that while they disagree with Obama’s stance on this issue, his policies will actually result in fewer abortions. This, to be frank, is bullshit, and I think most of them know it. It’s a cop-out to make them feel better. Read a summary of the Freedom of Choice Act and see how it will help reduce the number of abortions.)

The Democratic Party as it currently stands holds evangelicals and biblical truth in contempt, and some of us are too enamored with the idea of being “edgy” to see it. If we vote for them, we may get praised and invited to their parties, but the things we believe in will make no progress.

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Obama’s messianic complex continues to give me the heebie-jeebies. It was very evident at several points in last night’s speech, where he announced to the world that America had shown we’re still good people by voting for him. As if it wouldn’t be a great country if McCain had won. That kind of thing makes me spitting mad. It also doesn’t bode well for Obama supporters. Those huge crowds of people hanging on every word and gesture are scary, and the things people expect him to accomplish are scary. Obama may turn out to be a good president, but he’ll be a lousy savior, just like every other human.

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Win or lose, I love this stuff, and I love our country. I love that for nearly two and a half centuries, we’ve had the peaceful transition of power between parties over and over again. As frustrating as it can be, we really do have a great system. For the next few years I’ll have a president who I’ll probably wish weren’t the president. But I’ve had that before, and the world didn’t end.