Change really comes closer to home

A lot of very happy folks woke up this morning already looking forward to the new world order they hope will be created with the election of Barack Obama as president. Having grown up in the deep South during a time when blacks and whites drank at different public water fountains and sat in separate waiting rooms, it is remarkable indeed to think this could happen in my lifetime.

A lot of people were voting for the first time in yesterday's election. A couple of the people in line ahead of me didn't know which precinct they lived in and were a little distressed when their name wasn't in the big book. For most, they just needed to walk to the other side of the room where a different precinct voted to find their name and cast their ballot.

With so much excitement, I'm left hoping they are not eventually disappointed.

The president has nothing to do with the fact that we pay the highest sales tax in the United States. He has nothing to do with the county's policy to review real estate assessments every three years and raise property taxes as much as 7 percent a year. He has nothing to do with a dangerous intersection that needs a traffic light, the gang members who huddle at the street corner as you get off public transportation and walk home from work, or the fact that less than half the freshman class at your neighborhood high school will graduate.

Presidential elections get so much of our attention they can't help but motivate us to vote.

If only there were a way to get people as motivated to participate in elections that really matter. It's a whole lot more important to people who their mayor is, their city councilman, their county board representative, their state representative or even their state senator. It matters more how the city clerk runs his office, or whether the clerk of courts is honest and conscientious.

But those jobs are less sexy, don't get the day-to-day attention and sometimes their election days are in the winter during lousy weather. People want their voices heard in a national election that swings on differences of hundreds of thousands or millions of votes, but don't feel the same way about a local election whose result could hinge on a couple of dozen votes.

And sometimes be decided by a single vote.

There's little doubt this nation feels better about itself today than it has in eight years, and there's no reason to believe things won't be better for this country four years from now than they are today.

But ask yourself: Can you say the same thing about your neighborhood?