Well the race is over and is only the analysis left to pick over. Then we've got about 6 months before things start gearing up for the mid-terms and about 2 years before the Presidential roundabout begins again. When do they ever get time to actually govern?
Anyway, I've made no secret of it in recent days in that I have been wanting Obama to win, and my boy gone done it! It's not just that his politics fit mine better than McCain and his co-pilot, but he's been a genuinely inspiring candidate, unlike Kerry and Gore, who really never got the pulse racing... did either of them actually have a pulse themselves? In both cases I was not so much pro-them as anti-Bush. This time it genuinely was different.
Obama personifies change... politically, racially, socially, intellectually and generationally. He seems to have a good sense of how America is percieved in the eyes of the wider world and how it might function better as an agent of the common good.
I've mentioned the quality of his speeches previously, and his acceptance speech was no exception. It began:
"If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer."
However. A cautionary note, before anyone thinks I've been afflicted by Obamania. Whilst I believe that Obama and his message were compelling enough to take him to the White House, there are those who might legitimately say that what last night proved was the real power behind US democracy and the dream of the founders: Money.
The fact is that, as predicted by some before the race began, Obama spent around twice as much as any previous candidate for President, including the Shrub with his big oil backers, and significantly more than his opponent McCain, who was seen as too much of a "maverick" to draw down the traditional big business support that the Republican candidates have recently relied on.
Lets hope that it was money well spent...
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But at least he doesn't claim to want small government and then run up a trillion dollar deficit from a standing start like the Shrub.