At about midnight eastern last night, as I was taking the dogs outside one final time, I looked up into the constellation-filled sky and asked, “I hope you know what you’re doing.” It was a brief respite from having watched Fox News and looking at multiple browser tabs monitoring the election results; a question to the Almighty was in order.

While I am glad that God has given humans the existential power of will — and that we Americans live in a country that allows for majority rule with minority checks on that power — sometimes I have to question the whole thing. It’s not that I have a problem with the first black man getting into office (I think it’s great that one of the last “glass ceilings” has been broken for the third largest racial group in America), it’s that I am very wary of this President-elect Barack Hussein Obama.

I will not belabor the points of what we actually know about the man or the various lawsuits that are on-going concerning his eligibility (you can see those links via my “Top Stories” section in the sidebar, to the right). Instead, I’m going to cover why all is not lost for the conservative movement in America (and, as the links to which I refer note, where we must redouble our efforts for the future):

• The Democrats will have gained less than a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. Also, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), while I hate his penchant for earmarks, does have the keen ability to muster 41 Senatorial votes to create filibusters and help stymie (in theory) the worst legislation from getting passed.
• The Democrats gain a number of “Blue Dogs” in the House. While the Democrat majority could expand up to 25 seats, Speaker Pelosi is going to have to do some negotiating even with the moderate/conservatives (if you can call them that) in her own party to get things done.
• The Democrats are officially on notice for 2010. There is no more blaming of Bush (in reality) from this point on. The Dems control the House, Senate and Executive; if they can’t get things done or pass legislation that’s too liberal, they will get thrown out in 2010 (very similarly to what happened to President Clinton in 1992, who then lost the entire Legislative branch in 1994).

Consider me an eternal optimist. While I don’t think the vast majority of the American people really understand the kind of change that President-elect Obama really has in mind, I do believe that the American people will not go away kindly into the dark if he doesn’t move very quickly back to the center. After all, as President Clinton realized, triangulation is the name of the game in DC.

Some links:

• Obama Administration Survival Guide – Redstate.com
• Notes from the collapse – Hotair.com
• No mandate for Obama, no lopsided Congress – Robert Novak
• The 44th President of the United States – Jeff Schreiber
• Will a Black President Heal the Racial Divide? - T.D. Jakes
• Conservatism Can Rise Again - Philip Klein
• The After. The Before. The Future, Present, and Past. - Redstate.com
• The Leadership Struggle Ahead - Redstate.com
• That’s what elections are for - Hotair.com

On another note, updating everyone on the status of The Right Side of Life, based on my StatPress statistics, since Saturday, October 25, 2008, this blog has received over 3,000 unique visitors and served over 10,000 pages (that equates to averaging about 300 new folks and about 1,000 page views per day). Further, The Right Side of Life is beginning to show up across various search engines (such as Yahoo! and Google) for popular terms and it is garnering a readership from around the world (gotta love those spiders!).

Not bad for being in existence for a mere 12 days! Thanks so much for your stopping by and reading. I hope to keep it up, so be sure to tell someone about the site.

The Right Side of Life is committed, now more than ever, to continue advancing the causes of individual liberty, strong but limited government, and a continued pursuit, in love, for the truth.

-Phil