It's been 2 weeks now since Senator Barack Obama was elected to be the 44th President of the United States of America and even more significantly the first U.S. President of African descent. I'd be telling a lie if I said this historical achievement had sunken in already for me. This isn't because of shock. To best explain the feeling I have about this historical achievement I have to quote my mother, her parents, numerous school teachers and many other adults who shaped me into the person that I am today.
"You will appreciate it more if you have to work for it"
When I was a child I would turn to the adult bestowing these words of wisdom upon me and say,
"Why!?"
If common sense didn't set in at the right age, this historical election period would have answered that question for me easily. I simply can't appreciate President-elect Obama's victory for all its worth because he obviously didn't have to work hard for it, especially in the home stretch. John McCain stopped just short of spoon feeding him the victory. Some might even say that McCain wanted to see a black man in office more than the black man himself.
McCain's entire campaign seemed to be a bad joke from some other dimension.
-Sarah Palin
-"That one"
-Joe The Plumber
-Suspending his campaign to deal with the economic crisis(weeks earlier he was proudly saying that "the fundamentals of the economy are strong")
...and the list goes on.
McCain might as well have filled a spoon with victory and told Obama, "open up for the choo choo train". If this wasn't the worst ran Presidential Campaign in U.S. history, I'm afraid to even ask what was. And, in contrast to the joke that John McCain called a campaign, Barack Obama ran the best campaign possible with the tools he had to work with. His campaign manager, David Plouffe, set a precedent in how future campaigns should be ran if you even want to contend for the presidency. The campaigns of this election season pitted the absolute best campaign against the absolute worst campaign.
Don't get me wrong, I'm happy that Barack Obama won the election. Not only because of the historical aspect, but because he is the most progressive person willing to take the job and that's what this country and to a greater extent, this world needs right now. I'm just not as happy about the historical aspect of his election as I should be, because it feels like it was handed to him and he didn't have to exert much effort as he did.
Final Thoughts
America electing it's first black president did not put an end to racism. It just showed that the majority of Americans used their brains during this election and chose the best candidate running for the job. When America votes in a dumb black man to the office of President of the U.S., then we can start talking about the end of racism in America. Don't blame me for setting the bar so high. Blame the people that voted George Bush into office twice. readmore »»
