By Sarah CocchimiglioPROFIT Communications PR Assistant-Writer/Editor
The election is over!
Votes cast, races conceded, the market saturation of political ads has run its course. The campaign signs have been - or should be - picked up from the sides of the roads. The pundits are moving on to other, only slightly less political areas of focus, including my personal favorite news item for today, in which a KKK rally is met by a large group of clowns and other colorful, peaceful protesters, with messages of love and tolerance and "white flour."
In Florida, voters stood in line for hours on Election Day, and it took four days to tabulate returns and a declare victor. Governor Rick Scott has ordered a re-evaluation of his state's election practices. Why? The presidential election was decided without Florida. And nobody likes not feeling needed.
Whether or not the candidate you supported for president won or lost the election, our hopes for the next four years are all the same: Economic recovery, sustainability, realistic healthcare and tax reforms, and of course, the responsible handling of this fiscal cliff.
As often happens in the real world of business, the president does not get to choose whom he works with to resolve these issues. The election continued congressional status quo with a Republican House and a Democratic Senate. And so partisan politics will have to go out the window. The political lines in the sand must be gone with the wind, so to speak, and replaced with a meeting in the middle.
Democrats and Republicans at both the federal and state levels will have to work together, make some concessions and compromises so that the America my new son inherits someday isn't shackled to Chinese debt and foreign oil. We've elected them to make changes, not to stand on either sides of that line in the sand and point fingers.
Just this morning I saw a glimmer of hope for our nation's financial future in CNN's headlines this morning: "Boehner: We can avoid fiscal cliff," and "Obama: I'm open to compromse." And the buzz on Twitter is that both "Republicans and Democrats proclaim optimism on fiscal cliff deal."
Ladies and gentlemen, let the partyless party begin!