First off, let me say that watching the campaign through this time period has always been one of general excitement. I do not think either candidate really dazzled me that much in terms of trying to get my vote, but in the last hours of the election, the anticipation for an answer started to grow. I want to congratulate Barack Obama for making history as this country's first African American president, a honorable precedent to have in this day and age. I also want to give congratulations to Senator Joe Biden for achieving the vice presidency, and I also want to say that John McCain and Sarah Palin, despite their odds, persisted to the best ability they could with nearly every obstacle surrounding them.
Having said that, I am still not entirely convinced, and still hesitant to support, Obama even though I voted for him in this election. However, I was always cautious to do so. It may have been that people expected it from me because I am black, or in college, or live in Illinois, or whatever number of reasons. Those are assumptions that people make, and I do not care for them being made about me. I also never believed I was hearing the real Barack Obama during the primaries or the presidential campaign. I heard things that sounded good to applause, but never anything concrete or realistic to me. A symbol of change was not enough for me. There were several things that I disagreed with John McCain about, but I always thought he knew the way the political game was played, and how he could work within it. Still, in the end, I cast my vote for Obama.
The reason for it is not because of the buoyancy of support he has for being a direct representation for hope and change. It started with McCain's pick for Sarah Palin as his running mate. To be clear, it is not Palin's lack of experience that I have trouble with. One can make the same argument for Obama, and it was made for him twenty months ago. To me, as his campaign has proven, it is a dead issue. What troubles me about Palin is that she is an extremist. My issue is not far right extremism, just a polarizing pull in general. With her in the White House, and possibly the next leader of our country, that is a scary thought. This country had eight years of extremism and it did nothing for us. But her presence in the campaign was more than that. It reflected something about John McCain. He picked her because somebody told him that after the predictable choice Obama made the week earlier for Biden, McCain then had to live up to his maverick name and pick a wild card choice. The McCain back in 2000 would not have been persuaded so easily. After a bitter defeat eight years ago by dirty Bush politics in Florida, McCain has thought that he didn't run the best campaign. That is not true. To be honest, the issues McCain talked about and supported back then are similar to Obama's now. I still believe that McCain is still there, but has presented to us a forced polarization that makes him seem worse. He takes the opinions of everyone to try and win this time. The McCain in 2000 against the Obama in 2008 would have seen a much better turnout.
Do I think that Obama is the best thing for this country? I don't know. Do I believe in his overall message of change? Not really. Do I think a McCain administration would have been terrible? Absolutely not. I thought both of these candidates would have served their country extremely well as president, with both learning from the mistakes of the past and moving their country into a positive direction. My vote for Obama was clearly based on the logic: "the lesser of two evils", which already sounds harsh. I do not fully support Barack Obama, which is why my vote was reluctant. But I believed him to be a candidate who has already been presented as a symbol of a new era, and perhaps that is enough to some. To say that I look forward to an Obama administration is wildly inaccurate, but I pray that Obama, after capturing this historic feat, does not slip from his pedestal and plunge this country's hopes farther down that it has ever been before.
This is one of the few times where our country stands at a crossroads. Both men were capable of doing the right thing. What I hope is more important is where this country wants its leader to go, and if he can deliver even a fraction of it. Obama used his closing election night address to say that he will do his best as president, even though he will not be able to accomplish everything in a year, or even one term. That was the first real thing I heard Obama say, and while I wish I saw more of that during his campaigning, it's a good step to make to try and get me to be an Obama supporter. It's been an exciting day, and I can't wait for the same politics to start back up again in four years to restart this process once more. Until then, and at the present time, I say congratulations President (Elect) Barack Obama.
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