Momentous Change?

The good citizens of the USA are going to the polls today (or tomorrow for Alaskans and Hawaiians). In some states, the voting is already underway. It will be the first time since JFK in 1960 that a senator will have been elected president, no matter which party wins. Americans tend to prefer governors who they see as untainted by Washington politics, are closer and more responsive to their communities and have had more of a task of, well, governing. But now it’s Senator Obama versus Senator McCain. Democrat versus Republican duking it out.
As with many people in Britain, I have been fairly enthralled by the vicissitudes of Yanks electioneering, but will be glad when its over. It will be a historic election whatever happens. Either the first African-American becomes president or we will see the oldest man ever elected to a first term of office. There are some polls that suggest that if Obama was white he would be streets ahead, but that’s not the point. It’s going to be hard for any African-American to break into the White House, but it’s going to be a long time before the conditions are going to be as good for a black president to make a bid for the Oval Office. Elect a white man and it’s almost going to be business as usual. Barack Obama may advocate change, but he himself represents change.
Initially, I had supported my whimsical side, backing Hilary Clinton, partly because she was quite experienced, largely because she was a woman but mainly because if she became president then her husband would become ‘First Man’. But he would be no ordinary ‘First Man’. He was Bill Clinton. How often in the future would an ex-president move into the White House, but not as chief executive. I liked his branding of himself as the First Laddie. If it had been any other female, I would have reverted to my default position of preferring to see a black man in the White House to a woman, but Hilary had this unique attribute. But Obama won me over with his clearly defined policies (withdrawing from Iraq) and his rhetoric of hope. Long before the Democratic primaries were over (which I thought would go all the way to the August convention), I was hoping Barack Obama would do it. Obama is more of a clean break with the past. He stokes both my pragmatism and my idealism.
Obama has also made a smart choice in vice-presidential candidate in Joe Biden, garrulous, gaffe-prone, but immensely experienced and honest. McCain has made a horrific choice in Sarah Palin, who was so awful when quizzed on her own, that McCain had to be beside her as her minder in interviews. If McCain loses and Palin runs as Republican nominee in four years time, the party will be banished to the wilderness (something to be greeted with relief).
John McCain’s pedalling of lies about Obama has killed his reputation for integrity. McCain may feel that George Bush stole his chance of winning the presidency eight years ago by sliming him with dirty slurs and is stealing it again by wrecking the economy, getting involved in unpopular belligerence (unpopular because it looks like a quagmire) and just being a rotten president. McCain however seems to believe in adopting the same strategy, pretending that Obama is closely associated with terrorists, cooling off when it looked like it was backfiring, but then hitting hard again in desperation. He dishonours himself in doing so. It is unbecoming of one aspiring to be president (yet so often it happens).
Barack Obama’s grandmother dying is a personal tragedy and not just that she will not be there to see the child she raised take the White House. But it should guarantee Obama such an outpouring of sympathy from America neutrals that he should handily win this election. It was like when in 2002 the Queen Mother died, instantly boosting the popularity of the monarchy before the Golden Jubilee. I was quietly confident of Democrat nominee John Kerry winning in 2004, so I’m not taking anything for granted in this election, but in 2008 it is not Obama’s to lose, it is Obama’s to win in a landslide.
I’ve taken Wednesday off so I can watch the progress of what is going to be a momentous election. I’ll watch through the early hours of the morning, before drifting off after what has hopefully been a new dawn. The Democrats should also do well in Congress. Barack Obama may not be able to do everything people believe he will do, but just in himself as president, he will show a new face of the USA to the world.