Barack Obama will be the 44th president of the United States. Unlike the elections of 2000 and 2004, the votes created a landslide effect across the country. Thousands gathered in Grant Park in Chicago to celebrate Obama's victory. After 21 months of campaigning, Obama was home having dinner with his family. In Arizona, a crowd of solemn McCain fans watched their candidate lose decisively. McCain called Obama to secede.
Obama's campaign was successful in not only attracting Democratic voters, but also Independents and undecided Republicans. Now he's made history, starting a new chapter in America.
During MSNBC's coverage, I listened closely as former Republicans remain staunchly politically divisive. Tom Delay led the charge attacking House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The former House Speaker could not hold back and the air of his bitterness resonated. Former Pennsylvania State Senator Rick Santorum also came on the air Tuesday to announce the defeat of a Republican in his state. Mr. Santorum was once slated to be a Republican candidate for president. In Washington, I once watched in horror as Santorum and a group of his friends at Bobby Van's Steakhouse raised their glasses and toasted to "being white." Time has revealed that Santorum's ideology has no national appeal.
The GOP will have to completely revamp the party. The vicious attacks on Obama by Republican strategists simply did affect this historic election. The attempt to put Obama into some kind of "black" category has not helped or worked for Republicans. Chocolate News, a new sitcom on Comedy Central, did a segment on this issue. David Allan Grier made the case that Obama was not black. Grier said, "I've got news for you, he's not black." This is true. Grier than discusses the other comical options for a black president including Wesley Snipes and Blood Diamond's Djimon Hounsou. Generally, American history has categorized anyone with any remote amount of color as black and not white. With our nation in perilous trouble, Americans are seeing beyond this racially charged perspective. Even Colin Powell, always highlighted as black, is actually the son of Jamaican immigrants. Powell also has Irish and Scottish ancestory.
This kind of race-based parochial thinking brings some kind of "shame" to the competitive equation. Some Republicans still believe that being black means being intellectually inferior. Obama looked straight past this false notion. Barack Obama never saw his heritage as a sole deciding election factor. McCain and company hoped to play on this racial theme with their numerous questionable ads and suggestions about Obama being "Anti-American." This led to the virulent Republican attacks suggesting Obama was a "terrorist," creating a fear factor. This smokescreen tactic did not work. Barack Obama is no victim of the "Bradley Effect," either.
Sadly, these efforts did not address any of the issues Americans were focused on. The economy, high unemployment, the future of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, America's international standing, taxes, fuel costs, and healthcare all were unsuccessfully addressed by McCain's team. For those strategists and the long list of so-called Karl Rove "loyalist" the end of the road is near. My late Jesuit mentor Father John Brunett SJ used to say, "Good Riddance to Bad Rubbish."
President Elect Obama sent a glimmer of hope for the future in his victory speech. He said, "Yes we can."
Congratulations to the Obama Campaign !
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