Are you confident when you vote?

Whew, the presidential election is over.  I voted for Obama.

Despite sharing in the feeling of excitement with many Americans over this year’s election, it’s also made me think more deeply about the way we elect our leaders.

It seems really difficult to pick a president.  Or even a senator or governor.

A few days before the election, there were jokes on the radio about how anyone could be “undecided” about their vote so close to election day.  But I don’t really see the humor in this.  I think it is genuinely a difficult decision.

We’re using the same system to vote for this president as we have used to vote for previous ones, including Bush.  Bush’s second term has been pretty horrible, even if one ignore things that were not wholly his fault, like the economic crisis.  But, still, he was the one we elected, using the system used to elect Obama.

When a president does well, is it because the American people made a good pick, or is it more a result of the party system as a whole filtering out most of the crappy candidates and presenting the general public with decent candidates?  If the answer is that Americans made a good decision, that decision is usually made with only a few percentage point margin.  So basically, about half the voting public is “wrong”, no matter who won.

I guess my hope that Obama will be a good president is stronger than my confidence that he will be.  I voted for Obama because my confidence in him is stronger than in McCain.  But my uncertainty is stronger than anything I feel for either candidate.  I wish I could express this paragraph more elegantly…

Maybe an example will help.  The few Republicans I talked to feel very strongly that Obama will be a bad president.  But they voted for Bush in 2004.  What makes them so sure that they’re right this time?  I think party politics makes people put more confidence in their opinion than they otherwise might feel.

I’m not trying to pick on Republicans.  I feel vindicated that Bush was the wrong candidate for the last presidency, but it was bad for America, and I’m not glad I was right.  There’s bad Democratic presidents too.  I myself don’t feel so sure that Obama will be as “transformational” as many Democrats think.  If he turns out to be great, I wouldn’t feel proud of myself for picking the right candidate.  I would feel relieved that he ended up being a good president for the US.

I just wonder about how other people feel when they vote.  How confident are you when you vote?

Underscoring all of this, I do realize that all each of us can do is our best.  To come up with a form of government we think works best, and to make our best effort to pick effective leaders.  But…sometimes I think we get overconfident in how good our judgment.  At the end of the day, there are smart, genuinely good people on both sides.

Not to rain on all the hope that’s going on.  I mean.  Go Obama :)