Head Full of Doubt

Every time I hear the Avett Brothers sing "Head Full of Doubt, Road Full of Promise" on the radio, I am struck by this line: "your life doesn't change by the man that's elected".  Since tomorrow is election day, and since many voters are likely to express their frustrations with what President Obama and the Democrats in Congress have done in the last two years, I am pondering this notion brought to life by the lyrics in this song.

Why do we think that our lives should change based on who is elected president (or governor, or senator)?  What impact, really, does any president have on your life or mine?  Certainly if you're a member of the armed forces, then the decision made by President Bush to go to war in Iraq had impact on you, and the decision made by President Obama to extend our commitment in Afghanistan had impact on you.  But for most of us, if any elected officials have impact, it's officials at the local level (or in some areas of your life and mine, officials at the state level).  Local officials affect the quality of streets you drive on, the libraries and parks that you visit, the recycling program you support, the public school superintendent who is hired to improve the local schools.  State officials affect the quality of your college or university (and your public schools) through funding decisions, or decisions about end-of-course exams, or TEKS, or college readiness.  And Texas officials affect the quality of your neighbor's life, if not yours, through decisions about funding for the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), or Medicaid, or environmental protection (read this Statesman article regarding Texas' refusal to regulate greenhouse gases).  But does whoever is in the White House really affect your daily life?

Why, after less than two years in office, are voters so mad at (or disappointed in) Obama?  Can a single individual turn the tide of forces that produced the Great Recession?  The forces of an overheated housing market coupled with overly-complex investment strategies based on bundling sub-prime mortgages?  The forces armed against government regulation of banks and financial firms in favor of the presumed equity and fairness of the market?  The forces on the Republican side that decided in January 2009 to say "no" to anything the Democrats wanted to do rather than trying to find common ground?  The Senate Republican Leader who recently said that his top priority is to make Obama a one-term president?  Can a president create jobs?  Can a president single-handedly get consumers to spend (since we are a consumer-based economy), get banks to lend (since many banks are apparently holding on to their resources rather than lending), get corporations to hire?

Elections matter, because they express the attitudes of those who turn out to vote (but not the attitudes of those who stay home).  But in this year's mid-term elections, with our inability to be patient, our reluctance to recognize the complex forces that slow down policy-making, the failure of both parties to truly and sincerely call for compromise, the self-interest that seems to mean that no one is willing to be generous or to act for the greater good - what will be the message the voters are sending?  We're impatient?  We're worried?  We want the government to create jobs (which requires the government to spend money) and we also want the government to quit spending money and adding to the deficit?  What conclusions will we each draw after the voting ends on November 2?  Will we once again think that our lives will be changed by those whom we elect?