Obama Day
. By C. Jake Williams
. November 25, 2008
. Email Jake - Email this

It has been three weeks¹ since Barack Hussein Obama was elected to be our next president, an event worth a few thoughts.

If you watched the election coverage you likely noticed a lot of talk concerning Obama's race. I found this to be ridiculous. The opinion² that Obama will be the kind of president we need, a leader who can turn the economy around, restore America's reputation abroad, and allow the other two branches of our government to check the power of executive, is much more noteworthy than the fact that his father is from Kenya.

How can we ever achieve a mentality of equality where race is concerned if we constantly use information that should fall fourth or fifth in a bullet-pointed list as the lead to stories of national importance? Yes, Obama is half-black, but he is also already the most charismatic executive of my lifetime. A constitutional scholar who has impressed influential Americans from both political parties, Obama has clearly shown that he has the capacity to understand the role of government. It remains to be seen what fruition will come from that potential.

But this election was not about race. You can say it was about the military, or the economy, or even about keeping an 80-year-old redneck and his beauty queen running mate³ out of the oval office, but we can not allow Obama's presidency to be defined by half the color of his skin.

Maybe we can just concentrate on getting a man with a 30% approval rating out of the White House. Yeah, that's fair. Let's do that.

Another note about the election before I share a McCain-Obama video: Obama won the popular vote by a 52%-46% margin while securing a 364-173 victory in the electoral college. Jon Stewart said it best:

"Basically, a 6% popular vote victory translates into a 2-to-1 electoral college drubbing, proving once again that the electoral college makes perfect sense."

And now the video! This is from a charity dinner held the night after the last presidential election⁴, and I gotta say it makes me wonder what McCain was thinking. He has a personality? He can make people laugh as hard as he has made me shutter? I don't mind a president with a personality, but I and most of America had no clue that McCain was a candidate in that race.

McCain's speech starts at the 6:35 mark, followed by Obama's speech 23 minutes into the clip. My personal favorite part of the video is McCain's transition, however, so don't miss one second between 18:25 and Obama taking the mic. Enjoy.

Notes:

1. The calendar on my wall has plenty of X's, one for each day that passes in fact, but on November 4th in got its first 'O'. That's right, even before the results were announced I had declared that November 4th, 2008 be officially recognized as Obama Day⁵.

2. I agree with this opinion.

3. Sarah Palin thinks there are 22 letters in the alphabet, that Africa is a country, and looks like the odds-on favorite to win the Republican presidential nomination in 2012. I think I can handle eight years of Barack Obama, so I won't protest her nomination.

4. Here is a link to my diary of the debate.

5. I have since gone back to marking the days with X's. Obama was the candidate for change, but we still have to suffer through two more months of Bush before Barack takes office.

You were there.