First, let me say that John McCain has been a friend of mine since 1973 and I think he would have been a great President. His campaign was not the best in the world, but that is not unusual. I have no idea what kind of President Barack Obama will be. I find that after all this time I really don’t know who he is or what he stands for. This is the first time in my life that I have been nervous about the person that was elected, and truly worried about his lack of experience to take on the toughest job in the world. I am not the only one who feels this way. Look at the popular vote totals: Obama got 52%, an impressive number, but McCain got 47%. Our nation has become the greatest nation in the world because of our freedoms, including the right to work and vote for whoever we want. Barack Obama is going to become the President of the United States in January of 2009. I think it is incumbent upon all of us to give him a chance, let’s see what he does. He can’t get by with making beautiful speeches. Now he has to act. Let’s hope that he chooses people as his advisors at all levels who have a lot more experience and knowledge than he has going in. Let’s hope that he is a quick learner and will put the interests of the Country first before his political party. We need someone who is willing to do what must be done even if it means he won’t be reelected. Do not prejudge and lets all pray that he is the right person to lead us through these perilous times. I want Obama to be a great President for the sake of our Country.

I was talking with a newspaper reporter friend of mine, Pamela Hasterok, about why McCain lost the race and we came up with a theory based on several different factors. First, remember that before the economic debacle and the 777 point fall in the stock market, McCain was doing well, opening up a lead nationally and in most of the battleground states. The polls changed in 24 hours after the economy fell apart. One of the reasons that McCain didn’t win is the economy itself. It wasn’t going great before the collapse, but it was manageable. Once the stock market collapsed the loss in value of 401Ks and retirement accounts hit Main Street. This was not a crisis of Wall Street, this is a crisis of the average person in our Country. McCain unfortunately made a remark early on the day of the collapse, saying that the American economy was in good shape. He quickly corrected it, but the damage had been done.

The second problem for McCain was Bush. Bush has turned out to be the most unpopular President since they began recording approval ratings of presidents in 1964. Lyndon Johnson in 1964 had the highest approval rating, 74%. To give you some other comparative numbers, Richard Nixon in 1972 had a 56%, Jimmy Carter in 1980 had a 37%, Ronald Reagan had a 58% approval rating in 1984, George Bush, Sr. had a 33% in 1992, and George W. Bush in 2008 has a 25% approval rating. McCain had managed to move away from the Bush problem, but the failure of the economy brought Bush back front and center. It is normal that the party in power at the White House gets undeserved credit when the economy is good, but also gets undeserved blame when the economy isn’t, and this is certainly what happened. It also meant that the issues that were helping McCain of leadership, the international issues, Iraq, all the flip-flops of Obama, were taken off the table and McCain had Bush around his neck. Most of the people in this Country are angry, frustrated, and in many cases scared. They are not sure exactly what happened to the economy and why it happened. Many people in this Country know so little of our system that they believe that because there is a Republican President, the Republicans control Congress. Many people in this Country don’t care who controls Congress, they just want change and Obama represents political change.

Finally, McCain could not over come one of the big changes during President Bush’s second term of a decided Democratic registration surge in eight battleground states. Democrats now outnumber Republicans in six of the battleground states. The Democratic registration advantage in the eight states (Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania), of 1.6 million registered voters in 2004, has nearly doubled since then. When you take the increase in registration with the incredible get-out-the-vote campaign, Obama was able to pay for because of his tremendous fundraising advantage, you have an election that for the Republican Party is worse than the 1932 election that swept in Roosevelt.

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Lou Frey represented Central Florida in the U. S. Congress from 1969 to 1979. In his last election, he received nearly 80% of the vote. He was elected one of five Republican leaders in the House of Representatives during the 93rd and 94th Congress. He served on...