Election only a few days away

An election prediction: If Barack Obama wins on Tuesday, a week later, U.S. banks will be closed and soldiers will be marching in the streets.

Of course, the main reason for this is that exactly one week after Election Day — Nov. 11 — it will be Veterans Day, an annual banking holiday and a day of parades in cities across the country. So my prediction really has very little to do with the election. In fact, if John McCain wins, the same thing will undoubtedly happen.

I’ll stick with the prediction, though.

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I keep hearing that the upcoming presidential election is “the most important election in our time,” or any of several variants on the expression.

Personally, I’m not buying it. Sure, the election is important. And I plan to vote. But is 2008 really that much more critical than any other election? I don’t see how.

The truth is, every election is important. 2004 was important. 2000 was important. So was 1992, and 1980, and 1972, and 1964, etc. In fact, I’m hard-pressed to come up with a time when the presidential election wasn’t important. If anyone can come up when that happened, please let me know.

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One thing that is probably true, however, is that the election is historic. This is for the simple fact that we are either going to end up with our nation’s first African-American president, or our first female vice president.

But beyond that, the 2008 elections will also have historic significance because for only the third time in American history, a sitting senator will advance directly to the Oval Office. (For you history geeks out there, the other two were Warren Harding and John F. Kennedy.)

Typically, U.S. senators are considered likely White House hopefuls; but in actuality, few make successful presidential candidates. The problem for senators is that through the years, they inevitably end up voting for any of a number of measures that end up seeming a little unflattering, especially when taken out of context. Indeed, I have no doubt McCain and Obama could spend hours simply hurling accusations of unpopular votes at each other.

But since both candidates are senators, that whole thing kind of gets canceled out this year.

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Governors often make better presidential candidates than senators. For one thing, they don’t have as many controversial votes in their past. For another, they can claim “executive experience,” a quality generally deemed important for presidents.

In this year’s campaign, the only governor in the mix, of course, is McCain’s running mate, Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska.

Interestingly enough, very few governors end up as vice presidential candidates. In fact, other than Palin, the only other governor to take the No. 2 spot on a presidential ticket in recent memory is Spiro Agnew, the Maryland governor who ran as Richard Nixon’s running mate in 1968.

The knock on governors is that they often lack foreign policy credentials, as well as a vigorous knowledge of national issues. Perhaps that’s why senators or Cabinet officials more commonly end up as running mates. Even though they may struggle at the top of the ticket, such individuals often seem more well-suited to assume the presidency in the event of the president’s death.

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I’ll make one serious prediction in closing: No matter who wins the election next Tuesday, the sun will still come up Wednesday morning.

Whether it’s Obama or McCain, I can guarantee there will be good times, and there will be bad times. The stock market will go up; the stock market will go down. There will always be taxes. Health care will always be expensive. There will always be individuals across the sea that want to do harm to our country; not to mention some within our own borders who wish to do the same.

The good news is our national greatness extends beyond any one man, even the president. The country is not going to go to hell, regardless of who wins.

By all means, of course, go out and vote. Let you voice be heard. But when it’s all said and done, remember that we’re all on the same team. We’re not the “Red States of America” or the “Blue States of America;” we are the “United States of America.” Let’s live up to that.