As I sat watching the unfathomable at long last unfold, my eyes welled with tears, my throat closing with burning, conflicting emotions. Repudiation. Affirmation. Vindication. Validation. Culmination. And, yes, hope.
As Barack Obama stood accepting the adulation of 150,000 people in Grant Park and hundreds of millions of television viewers worldwide, gone was the wide boyish grin that captivated America during the campaign. As he spoke earnestly of the challenges we face across the globe and across America, only a faint remnant of his oratorical cadence rang out, replaced by a hushed and somber tone. The seriousness of the job he had so deservedly been chosen to do had already settled in. He looked, well, presidential.
Very clearly he deigned to heal wounds inflicted by a divisive campaign marked by misrepresentation, misguided attacks, and all too many bonafide lies opined by the opposition. A key phrase in the acceptance speech was when he called out to those who had not voted for him to allow him to be their president, too. For, like it or not, he will be.
This man has a chance to be a generational, transformational leader. The forces arrayed against him and us are powerful and unprecedented. Somehow he must at once end a war, forge plans to wean the west from its addictive dependence on fossil fuels, heal the American economy and in the process global financial disarray, design a full overhaul of the health care system, instill needed overhaul of the educational system, while working to ease the crippling burdens plaguing the middle class, all on a shoestring budget dictated by the disastrous war chest spending and misanthropic tax policies of the last eight years, the architecture of which seemed designed only to expand and proliferate the vast wealth of the top few percent of American families.
It is a daunting task, one few men could hope to even begin to face. Barack Hussein Obama is one of those men. The world will look to America for the change promised over the past months. Once again America can stand tall as the leading world proponent for peace and humanity. Once again we can act audaciously. Once again we can hope.
Right on, Michael.
On election night, Chicago’s own Grant Park was the scene of peace and gratitude, for at last this country had chosen, by majority, a leader who speaks to all people. We had earned the ability to, for a time, bask in the glow of victory and the return of common sense and decency. The grim reality of the country’s tasks were already present, as you mentioned, on our chosen one’s face. But for the evening, the citizens of Chicago and the citizens of the world could relax and take comfort that unseasonably warm evening that maybe, just maybe, everything will be alright.
By: Kim on November 8, 2008
at 2:54 pm
Excellent post, Michael. You eloquently stated what I felt while watching him speak, also. It truly feels like a genuinely good person finally won the White House.
By: Bryce on November 14, 2008
at 10:53 pm
Now THAT is a good first paragraph! Nice, very nice.
By: Cyn Mobley on November 14, 2008
at 11:06 pm