Congratulations to Barack Obama and his campaign on their landslide victory, but even more so to the USA, which has taken a great step forward out of the depths of the past eight miserable years.
Obama’s win is being celebrated as a great moment in race relations and a triumph for black people. It is those, surely, which is wonderful and exquisitely moving.
At the same time, it’s worth remembering that America did not just select a black (as we strangely call a person with one black parent) president. It also selected a man who distinguished himself as steady, focused, capable, sensible, and eloquent. In a television interview, Obama colleague Valerie Jarrett spoke of his “core decency.” None of these are words we have heard in connection with our presidency in a long time.
So good on us.
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map via 538.com
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Steve Hayes
It’s a great relief that Barack Obama was elected, which gives some hope that the nightmare of the Bush years may be ending, but I wonder how long people wil be able to believe in the promised change?