Presidential Election 2008

Tuesday, November 4th was Election Day. Now no matter how you voted, and if you did or did not vote, Republican, Democrat or others, there was no denying how exciting the 2008 election was. The candidates got a lot of people energized and more involved in at least informing themselves (Does SNL count?Actually Hillary has used it as a reference at one point in time.) of the candidates' profiles and how they might affect the American public. This was a long time coming.
Ever since I turned 18, I have voted in every national and local election(except American Idol) I can. I would just stroll in, sign on the dotted line, pluck in my vote and scoot. Usually this civic duty takes no longer then 5 minutes. But voting on November 4th was a whole different story. I actually had to WAIT for half an hour to vote. And people were HAPPY to wait on line! I had to ask to make sure I was on the line to vote because of all the enthusiasm I saw kind of threw me off. Anyway, I was considered lucky on my wait time. Most people I knew waited an average of 2 hours. Since when did this happen? Not even Fiasco Florida 2000 convinced people that their vote actually would make a difference for the 2004 or any other election for that matter. I would hear "Oh, I'm just one in a few million votes. How much can it matter." Well, this time a lot less people were taken in by this mentality towards the political process. People came out to vote for many different reasons. But what is important is that they actually found a reason significant enough for them to go vote. And people might even learn who their Assembly member or Congressperson is since some had the same election date as the presidential one. Alright, that might be a little bit too much of an enthusiastic thought. But someday, it could happen. The last two elections (2004 and 2008) were not exciting just for Americans, but curiously enough it also became a nail-biting experience for people around the globe. In November 2004, Americans elected the same person to continue to lead the free world for another 4 years, and then called it a night, while everyone else were busy printing newspapers with headlines that screamed "What?!" as well as other different variations of this outburst. This past election kept the international community even more on the edge of their seats. I also had an inkling that if we didn't vote for the BLUE team, we would be disowned from the planet. They'll find a way to "un-friend" us somehow. My point in saying this is not to boost up the Democrats. My point is to say how involved, informed, and effected other countries are in who we choose as our Commander-in-Chief. Our vote has more power then we give it credit for.