It’s ironic that Election Day so closely follows Halloween. Halloween is supposed to be the scariest night of the year, but not this year. The scariest night so far in 2008 was Nov. 4, in Chicago, when President-elect Barack Obama gave his victory speech.

Fundamentally, I was scared of the expressions of awe I saw in the faces of the crowd watching Obama that night. They looked like the fragile, hope-filled expressions of children on Christmas morning.

If you couldn’t stay up late enough to watch the event, perhaps you caught highlights the next day. You saw what looked like a million people trying to get close enough to catch a glimpse of their new leader. You saw people cheering for their candidate, who had just overturned hundreds of years of racism by bursting through the political glass ceiling that had limited black candidates in the past. And you saw a tired Obama giving yet another rousing speech, so dissimilar to our current president, who can’t manage to speak a sentence without stumbling.

Don’t get me wrong. I am glad we have a smart, well-spoken president to represent us on the world stage. I am glad we have a black president. And, more importantly, I am glad young people finally got a candidate they were excited about.

But while these are all things to admire about Obama, what has me worried are the expressions of those gathered to witness his speech early Wednesday morning. I’ll probably never forget one particular face, that of Oprah Winfrey, as she stood in the crowd. She radiated hope, like she was witnessing the second coming of Jesus to bring peace on Earth. The implications of all this hope are frightening.

First, I simply can’t understand what people see in Obama. I see someone who came on the national scene four short years ago, who avoided voting in the Senate hundreds of times, and hasn’t accomplished anything. What has he done to deserve Oprah’s beaming devotion? I just don’t understand how people can get so hopeful about someone who has no record of greatness.

Second, unwavering devotion to a president is simply un-American. I don’t remember a president ever receiving this kind of reception. We are a nation of rugged individualists. The only kind of politician we tend to trust is a politician who advises us not to trust the government.

Obama’s the opposite. He’s telling us to put all our faith in government, and that government can make America great. What has made America great is the restraints put on the government by the people, not the other way around.

Most of all, I’m nervous that Obama has promised too much to the American people, and that those Christmas-morning expressions of hope seen in Chicago last week will turn downcast once world peace doesn’t come, “spreading the wealth around” doesn’t cure our economy, and universal health care insurance remains elusive.

In essence, Obama has led these hopeful people to water, and now he better give them something to drink. But what happens if he can’t deliver on his promises? For him, his presidency will ironically be declared a failure, as he himself has so often described his predecessor’s presidency. And secondly, and more importantly, the current euphoria created by Obama’s campaign rhetoric will come crashing back to Earth possibly sending the country into a longer economic downturn and leaving each American with a greater sense of hopelessness.

Hopefully he can deliver on his promises. But if he can’t, another generation of Americans – namely all those young people who voted him to power – will once again feel let down by Washington, D.C. But maybe that is the wake-up call we all need to make us realize the way to a better America is through hard work, family ties and self-reliance, rather than government safety net.

John Balentine, of Windham, first felt let down by his government after George H.W. Bush raised taxes after famously promising “No new taxes.”