Yes we did
At one of Obama’s final election rallies, Bruce Springsteen said he wanted his country back. Well, I’m glad he got his wish, along with the rest of the American people and, it seems, the rest of the world.
Obama’s victory feels like more than a national issue. Not just because what the US does impacts on us all. More because the election of the first African American US President marks such a fundamental step forward in their society, and a step that’s been embraced with such enthusiasm by the people.
Obama has made history through making people care about politics again as well as by changing what power looks like. I hope political parties the world over are making that connection and thinking seriously about their own practices as a result. Those long lines of voters, reminiscent of Nelson Mandela’s Presidential election, were inspiring.
Right up until last night, it wasn’t clear whether Obama would pull it off – a feeling reinforced by his campaign’s approach of not taking anything for granted. The campaign was superb, using electronic communication to galvanise support and raise money, but not to replace the face to face contact that wins elections – UK New Labour please note.
Obama has talked of change and unity, and now he gets the chance to show us what he means. With the possible exception of Mandela, no politician in recent history can have taken power with so much good-will behind him.
Trouble is, I remember the last time I felt like this about an election victory. May 1997, Tony Blair. I really hope this is different.
9 comments:
"A new day is dawning is it not?"
Tony Blair 1997.
Yes, I know exactly what you mean Jenny. Immense pressure on Obama to deliver, his centre-left idealism is likely to hit as much resilience in the White House as Whitehall and Britain to the Euro.
Obama must move in first term, in the first flush he must drive it home and unlike Blair - drive his changes in deep.
The biggest mistake of Tony Blair was too much agenda with too little of it really taken up and delivered deep at home, especially in terms of attitudinal changes to policy stances.
Obama if he can learn anything from the UK is to have an agenda but take it slowly - step by step - remain fixated on priority issues to him. Foreign policy changes and building new alliances and economy. These two issues alone will require mammoth strategies and hard hard work, hard thought and mighty tough bridge building.
I think the key to change now is taking a long time on making it happen. In doing so other policy-media areas will open up that the opposition can get a foot hold on, but that's the price for standing by your key aims.
"More because the election of the first African American US President marks such a fundamental step forward in their society, and a step that’s been embraced with such enthusiasm by the people."
I would disagree with this sentiment. The most significant part of this is that the election turned completely upon the economic situation during mid-September. The American people voted on an electoral issue, not a token issue like race, as the media was trying to portray right the way through. This "Bradley effect", for example, was nothing, it would seem, but an entire fabrication. I think the most significant part of this election is that America has been ready for a "black candidate" for years (maybe even decades) - they just needed to strike the appropriate political note.
DC - I agree; the biggest mistake of Blair's 1st term was to stick to the Tory budget limits for the first 2 years, which put back health and education improvements and made people cynical about Labour's ability to make change. But Obama has a head start because he has grabbed the ideological agenda and can attach the rhetoric of change and unity to any initiatives he starts out with, even if they take a few years to come to fruition.
James - I read an interesting piece in the Irish Times a few weeks back, discussing interviews with Michelle Obama and Cindy McCain about whether race had been a campaign issue. Michelle said yes definitely, Cindy no. That's an example, I think, of the importance of perspective. And anyone watching Obama's victory speech would have noticed the allusion to the Martin Luther King I have a dream speech - but in this case, I thought, re-presented to include everybody. So Obama is saying race is relevant, racism hasn't gone away, but look what can be achieved anyway.
And, as you say, the economy helped Obama to win, IMO because he looked very Presidential when talking about what he would do about it. His authority and charisma transcend his ethnicity, of course.
While I was pleased to see Obama win the election, I do wonder if his European fan club will remain so firmly on his side when he orders the first air strikes on al-Qaeda bases in Waziristan. I certainly hope so. As for poor old Tony Blair, I think history will judge him a lot better than many of us currently do. The problem is, like with Obama, people had huge expectations for Labour in 1997 - they just didn't know what those expectations were. Of course, it only took a quick flick through Labour's 1997 manifesto to realise that you weren't exactly reading Trotsky's Permanent Revolution.
Change is a wonderful thing but it is not in itself a policy or ideology and perhaps therein lies the problem: people sometimes do not consider what they are voting in favour of. In 2009, once Obama has proved that he is not some black Noam Chomsky that has shrewdly infiltrated the Oval Office, I expect to see the honeymoon with some of his more idealistic followers end fairly abruptly. People now need to ask themselves what they expect from the new President. If the answer is an anti-war leader who delivers to us an era of economic boom then I suspect that they will inevitably be let down. However, cynical as I am, I must admit to briefly getting caught up in the emotion last night when Obama promised to buy his kids a new puppy for moving to the White House!
JG - there should be more emotion in politics, not less, even if puppies are going a bit far! I think Jesse Jackson got it about right.
And yes, all political careers end in failure, and no-one in power gets away without making compromises and upsetting people. I expect this, and will be interested in Obama's justifications for the unpalatable things he will do.
But, as always, it's a question of degree and balance. In whose interests will he be governing? I can't help being optimistic that ordinary people will get more of a look-in than they did under Bush.
Yes, we are all swept up in the changey-hopey idealogy at the moment, Jenny. And we are enjoying it!
I was very disillusioned at Proposition 8 and equally disillusioned at OB's stance on gay marriage.
I'm hoping it was merely an election ploy.
Also, it remains to be seen if he will honour women and gays in his cabinet.
I agree on the whole Tony Blair promise. I will always remember a New Yorker essay on him when he was ushered in. Full of his promise. How disillusioned we all became, and so fast.
XO
WWW
www - yes, soemtimes it's two steps forward and one step back, and sometimes it's one step forward and two steps back. We'll see which this is. I'm very concerned at the concentration on the possibility of assasination, too - it puts ideas into the heads of all those Mark Chapmans out there, along with the political groupings.
Jenny, I don't think it's us putting the idea into the heads of Mark Chapman & Co, but the other way round. After all, two Kennedys were assassinated and an attempt made on Reagan. And of course John Lennon himself.
I just hope Obama has some very vigilant bodyguards around him.
Well, fingers crossed anyway.
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