44

It’s been a week since Barack Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States of America. Most of the media outlets and personality have packed up and moved on from the campaign and the significance of the moment, shifting their focus - as they should - to the transition period and the cabinet selection and the search for the new White House puppy. But before I join them, I need to take one last look back. A look back at the highs and lows of the longest presidential campaign in history. One last look back at what Obama has accomplished to this point and the enormity of the challenges ahead of him.

Four years ago, at the Democratic Convention, America was introduced to a skinny black guy with a funny name from Chicago, Illinois. At that time merely a local figure, no one knew anything about him, except that he gave one hell of a speech. Sometimes all you need is an opportunity. Obama was able to use the overwhelmingly positively response to that speech (as well as the gift he received of his opponent Jim Ryan’s admissions of strip club visits and messy divorce proceedings) into election to the U.S. Senate in 2004. Once he arrived there, no one gave him much thought or attention. He was a freshman senator from a state with a strong, well-known senior senator with apparently no higher political aspirations. But he used the first two years of his term to quietly build a network of support in Congress and to begin to develop a “grassroots” movement, heavily dependent upon the internet and the youth of the nation. Then, on a cold, crisp February day, on the steps of the State Capitol in Springfield, Illinois, Barack Obama announced his candidacy for President of the United States.

At that point in time, the nation barely noticed. Everybody knew that Hillary Clinton would be the Democratic presidential nominee. The primary process - still 11 months away was nothing more than a formality. She had spent decades preparing for this run, logging 12 years as the First Lady of Arkansas, eight years as the First Lady of the United States, then winning election to the U.S. Senate in 2000 and cementing her credentials with re-election in 2006. Together with her husband she had created a powerful political machine backed by numerous big money donors and powerful party insiders. There was no way she could lose the primary. Until she did.

Senator Clinton’s achilles heel turned out to be her Senate vote authorizing the invasion of Iraq. Not being a member of the Senate at the time, Obama escaped having to cast a vote on the issue. What initially looked like a successful military campaign dragged on to become a messy mishandled occupation, complicated by an insurgency which resulted in a religious-based civil war. Coupled with the failure to find any weapons of mass destruction - the selling point of the war to the American people - what had originally been viewed as a cake-walk to Baghdad was now deeply unpopular and being compared to the American experience in Vietnam. This was Obama’s opening. His opposition to the invasion made him the only major Democratic candidate untainted by the war, allowing him to build a small, yet vocal base of support. Then came Iowa.

Prior to the night of the Iowa caucuses, most black voters strongly supported Senator Clinton. Simply put, they didn’t believe white people would vote for a black man for president. They hadn’t before, why should this time be any different? But Obama was a different kind of candidate. Instead of emphasizing his blackness and and calling attention to racial and social injustice around every corner, Obama emphasized his Americanness and the plight of the middle class, careful to avoid ever appearing as the “angry black man.” Throughout both the primary and the general election campaigns his supporters frequently grow frustrated with Obama’s apparent reluctance to take the offensive against his opponents. But he well understood that nothing would sink his campaign faster than playing to the image of the angry black man. So he continued to give his audiences the benefit of the the doubt, and on a chilly January night, Iowa caucus voters returned the favor. Obama ran away with Iowa. All of a sudden, black voters realized that white America just might be ready to make history. The importance of Iowa cannot be over-stated. Same goes for New Hampshire.

Just four days later Obama rolled into New Hampshire riding high off the Iowa victory with a clear lead in the polls. But Senator Clinton wasn’t quite ready to disappear into that goodnight. Stunning the pollsters, Clinton easily wins the New Hampshire primary, setting the stage for the first fifty-state primary campaign many people can remember. At first, the mood in congenial, with most Democrats declaring that they would be perfectly happy to end up with either candidate. But as the primary wears on and the battle becomes more acrimonious, tempers begin to flare among supporters. The Clinton strategy was to defeat Obama on Super Tuesday, claiming victory in enough primaries to end the race. But Obama was able to win enough contests to play Super Tuesday to a stalemate. It was at this point that Senator Clinton’s campaign strategy broke down. It became evident that there was no plan to continue beyond Super Tuesday. From the beginning, Obama had developed a keen understanding of the Democratic primary and caucus proportional representation system, realizing that he didn’t need to win big states like New York and California, he only needed to remain competitive, while taking as many small states as he could. He had send teams of volunteers ahead into smaller states to set up for the coming caucuses. Senator Clinton had not done so. Due to that tactical error on her part, Senator Obama rattled off 11-straight virtually uncontested victories, building what would turn out to be an insurmountable pledged delegate lead. Wanting to go with a winner, the super delegates began to switch allegiances, and by the night of the final primary, Senator Obama had his Democratic primary victory all wrapped up.

But victory came at a price. The Democratic party was now fractured, one faction supporting Barack Obama, the other backing Hillary Clinton. And, five weeks prior to the Pennsylvania primary, Obama had been forced to confront the issue of race he had avoided so deftly when video of one of his Chicago pastor’s sermons found it’s way to television news. With a brilliantly insightful speech and several emphatic denouncements, he was largely able to put Jeremiah Wright behind him. But party unity was a different story. All the way up to and through the convention, the narrative would focus on whether or not Obama could win over Clinton supporters upset - even distraught over her defeat. The media devoted reams of copy and countless hours of airtime to the question of how Obama would appeal to this constituency. Several high-profile Clinton backers defected, publicly pledging to work to get John McCain elected. There was even some measure of doubt as to how Senator Clinton would respond at the convention. But in the end, it turned out to be a lot of wasted ink. A true class act, both Senator and President Clinton put their purpose ahead of their egos and threw their support behind the Democratic nominee. That Thursday night Senator Obama delivered his acceptance speech in front of eighty thousand people at Invesco Field in Denver, becoming the first black candidate to head a major party presidential ticket. He had a slim lead in the polls, and the support of most of his Party. Things were looking up Thursday night. But Friday was another day.

The Friday morning following Obama’s acceptance speech, John McCain revealed his running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. A fresh-faced conservative mother of five, she was an instant hit with the Republican base and a media sensation. The announcement of her vice-presidential candidacy completely erased Obama’s convention bounce, and vaulted McCain into a slim lead in the polls. Without even one day to savor his moment, he was playing catch-up to his opponent. But soon a curious thing began to happen. While conservative Republicans were enamored with the Palin selection, they weren’t John McCain’s constituency. And the more Independents learned about Sarah Palin, the less they cared for her. Their concerns were piqued when she faltered a little in her first nationally televised interview with Charles Gibson of ABC News, then confirmed when she completely floundered in an interview with CBS’s Katie Couric. Her approval numbers began to dip, and without ever addressing her directly, Obama once again pulled even in the opinion polls. Then the bottom fell out for John McCain.

Since the beginning of his campaign, McCain had been searching for a theme to run on. He survived the primary on the military success of “the surge” which he had advocated and supported. But by this time, that mantra was getting stale. So he turned toward more traditional Republican talking points. Reduction in capital gains taxes, school choice and smaller government became the new focus of the campaign. But the economy wasn’t cooperating. Suddenly, over a weekend, mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were placed into conservatorship by the Treasury Department. Within a week, Lehman Brothers, a fixture on Wall Street for over a century, was forced to file for bankruptcy and Merrill Lynch was purchased by Bank of America for less than half of its value. In the six months since the federal bailout of Bear Stearns and the country had been lulled into a false sense that the sub-prime mortgage crisis wasn’t quite as bad as people thought. But Lehman started the cascade. In the days that followed, several big name banks like Wachovia were taken over by the government to protect the assets of the depositors. Seemingly oblivious to what was happening, McCain told the assembled crowd at a Monday morning rally in Jacksonville that, “...the fundamentals of the economy are strong....” The Dow plummeted five hundred points that day, and by that afternoon McCain was scrambling to qualify and adjust his statements. He didn’t realize it at the time, but that statement signaled the death of his presidential campaign.

True to his “maverick” nature, McCain dove headlong into the problem, announcing he would “suspend his campaign” immediately, putting country before personal ambition and return to Washington to shepherd Congress through the necessary bailout negotiations. Only he gave several sit-down interviews before he returned to Washington, and when he got there, he did nothing. He then announced he would not attend the first presidential debate scheduled for that Friday evening if there was no agreement on a financial rescue package. On Thursday he took credit for the passage of a deal before it was voted on. Said deal went down in flames on the floor of the House and McCain blamed Senator Obama for its defeat. Except that the vote took place in the House of Representatives, so Obama had nothing to do with it. Then, without a deal in place, and without an explanation, McCain appeared at the debate as scheduled. But his performance was less than stellar. He appeared agitated and distracted, and dismissive of his opponent, refusing to look at Barack Obama during the entire 90 minute exchange. Over the course of one week, the battle-tested John McCain had gone from being viewed as the experienced, weathered, stoic President-in-waiting, to a confused, erratic, out-of-touch old man. Obama, derided by McCain throughout the entire campaign for his “poor judgement” and “lack of experience,” came across as the steady hand in a time of crisis. A majority of the public now viewed him as... presidential. The remainder of the campaign was academic.

The final two debates changed nothing. Down in the polls McCain resorted to the tried and true Lee Atwater designed, Karl Rove tested politics of personal destruction. His campaign trotted out issues put to rest during the Democratic primary, threw out every label they could think of, even attempted to turn a plumber into a mascot. Due in part to the afore-mentioned tactics the race tightened down the stretch. But in the end, the Democratic candidate’s significant monetary advantage and superior organization, (is it safe to assume the roll of community organizer will never again be ridiculed on national television by a Republican operative?), coupled with an over-riding concern for the economy and confidence in Obama’s ability to turn the country around trumped the politics of fear and loathing, and Barack Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States. The first black President in U.S. history. The first black head of state in the Western World. The magnitude of that achievement cannot be overstated. There was a time in this country when those with Obama’s skin color were considered to be only three-fifth’s of a person. Merely forty years ago black people were forced to eat at separate lunch counters, drink from separate water fountains and ride at the back of the bus. I wasn’t born yesterday. I’m under no illusion that Obama’s victory instantly resolves the racial tensions and conflicts that have plagued this country for 400 years. But what it does signal is the willingness of Americans to try. I’m also not naive enough to believe the election of Barack Obama will magically undo the damage done to this country and its image by the current administration. He will inherit two unfinished wars, a Justice Department in tatters and a global economic meltdown. It’s difficult to understand why anyone would want the job at this point. Undoubtedly Obama will succeed in some areas and fail in others, just like every other leader to come before him. We would be wise to expect a bumpy ride in the beginning. But what we have done with this election is reject the insanity of repeating the same actions over and over again, expecting a different result, choosing instead a different path. One rich with the promise of possibility, with the belief that we can be more than the sum of our parts. Let’s not allow such an historic opportunity to go to waste.