Ellis Henican (standing), Mike Germano, Rachel Sterne, Sarah Bernard and Howard Greenstein at a recent NY:MIEG/CBSACNY event

Ellis Henican is a good buddy, a good guy, a helluva writer (for Newsday), Host & Commentator (Fox News) and one of our newest NY:MIEG Moderators (he did a great job at our “Social Media & The Presidential Election” event last week). His column,a personal, opinionated look at the news of the day appears in the paper’s front section every Wednesday, Friday and Sunday that appears in Newday is awesome.

His column in today’s Sunday Newsday “Voters, the choice is yours, so make it count” is right on target!

Ellis Henican

Newsday/November 2, 2008

Here’s the plea to vote.

This may sound hopelessly corny. Or preachy. Or none-of-my-damn-business-so-just-shut-up. But it’s actually kind of important.

So I’m sorry, I will not be dissuaded. Just humor me, OK?

As you might have heard, there’s an election on Tuesday. Chances are, unless the count is really, really close and angry squads of lawyers take total control, we will elect a new president of the United States.

Truly, no election in our time has mattered more.

It’s like 1860, 1932 or 1960. Something big is about to happen. Paradigm shifts are in the air. Life-changing choices are being thrust upon us, whether we are ready for them or not. We will define them, or they will define us.

This is not a plea for one candidate or another. Barack Obama and John McCain have made their cases as well as they can, however imperfectly.

It’s a plea for confronting the gigantic choice that faces us and asking, each of us: “What direction from here?”

No one can say there’s no difference. No one can say the candidates’ temperaments or instincts or priorities or generations are the same.

Whoever wins will have to face the same daunting landscape – an economy being battered, jobs getting scarcer and less well-paid, two wars that, however we got into them, are not proving easy to leave. But each man will navigate the terrain in his own unique way.

Do you care more about education – or keeping taxes down? How much longer should we remain in Iraq? How should we share the burden of paying for whatever government does? Who has the character and temperament to represent us abroad?

There are many things very wrong with the way we pick a president. But here’s something right. In the end, there’s a choice to be made. The choice really does matter. If we don’t make it, someone else will.

FOR THE COMPLETE STORY FROM NEWSDAY CLICK HERE