To the Editor:
The election is over, but for many, the elation is not. Neither is the bitterness, the vitriolic rhetoric and name calling which continued even in its last hours. This, after an election, is unprecedented.
I don’t think I was alone during these last few campaign months in perceiving Barack Obama as one of the most beloved and most hated men in the country.
I think any hatred deserves to be seriously thought about rather than rationalized or dismissed. It is dangerous when slander becomes acceptable belief, even though “slander” isn’t applied to politics, where all is fair, like love and war.
Maybe it should be expected that a candidate who didn’t follow the unwritten rules of telling people only what they want to hear, while trying to be all things to all people, should find himself anathema to many since it is a consequence of being true to oneself, and ergo true to all others, expectations or not.
Our president-elect has shown himself as one who rises above the negative. It is my hope that the rest of the country follows his example. He does represent all of us.
On a very close to home note: why not forget about putting a clockwork in the Damariscotta Baptist steeple, since the bank across the street from it already displays the time 24 hours a day? Save the money, raise it up sooner.
Carl Scheiman, Walpole
