Globalaffairs

Issue 12/December-January 2009
By Kim Young

After twenty-two months of grueling campaigning, America chose African-American Barack Obama to be the 44th President of the United States of America. With celebrations erupting in Grant Park, Chicago in Obama’s home state of Illinois to celebrations in Kenya, London, Japan, Europe and Sydney, to name a few, a new era was ushered in under the mantle of “Change We Can Believe In”, while at the same moment, exactly 44 years later, an African American affirmed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Obama was born in Hawaii to a white mother from Kansas and a father from Kenya and largely raised by his white grandparents. He lived in Indonesia and was raised in Hawaii until his college years at Harvard where he became the President of the illustrious Harvard Law Review and went on to teach Constitutional Law. Married to a Harvard educated lawyer, Michelle Obama, Obama gave up the prospect of a six figure income to work in community organizing on the South side of Chicago when unemployment was high and homelessness stole hope from its citizens. He wrote two memoirs, “The Audacity of Hope” and “Dreams from my Father” both immediate bestsellers.

In a hard fought battle, Obama emerged victorious around midnight. Over at the luxurious Belmont Hotel, a sorely disappointed John McCain, a US war veteran and former P.O.W. who already attempted to run for President, addressed die-hard Republicans and graciously accepted the will of the people. However, graciousness was not the hallmark of the battle for the White House.

After an equally grueling primary, 47 year old Obama had a tough fight with wife of former President Bill Clinton, Senator Hillary Clinton. Despite numbers (2025) that showed she could not win the primary, Clinton continued to fight, often times engaging in nasty smear tactics as more and more Super Delegates head in Obama’s direction to endorse his candidacy. A “ruthless” (1) politician, bright woman and ambitious to a fault, Clinton left no stone unturned including fighting to the bitter end to the Democratic National Convention, when only under a DNC (2)constitutional acclamation did she throw her support behind Barack Obama.

Many observers and political pundits remained cynical concerning Hillary Clinton and husband Bill Clinton’s support for Obama. Evident on the campaign trail were run-ins with the press including one with Jessica Yellin of CNN. Bill Clinton appeared tense, angry and at times loath to unite the party. If the party was to win the election, however, it was obvious that the party needed to unite and unite it did. On the last night of the Democratic National Convention a united party put forth Barack Obama and his running mate, veteran politician Senator Joe Biden of Delaware, to run on the Democratic ticket.

Once again, Clinton supporters were enraged at Obama’s choice despite Hillary’s call for unity and Bill Clinton’s more than complimentary speech on Obama where he openly asked for support. Many had hoped that Obama would automatically pick Hillary Clinton, instead he went for Joe Biden.

Perhaps in an effort to divorce himself with the Clinton dynasty, Obama-Biden nicely packaged themselves as agents of change (3). Biden known to be rash, prone to gaffes and who himself had tried to run for President this primary against Obama, fit right into the role. Strategically it appeared as though Biden was meant to replace Clinton in reaching the rural and suburban whites. Indeed Campaign Manager David Plouffe developed a masterful campaign which was built from the ground up, was grassroots in nature and included the use of every new media tool available. Through asking for small donations on the internet, Obama was able to galvanize the support of a million on-line donors to raise over US$600 million, an unprecedented sum of money thereby forever changing the landscape of political campaign contributions forever. He refused to accept public financing unlike McCain, facilitating the ability to run advertising and new media campaign where he was able to reach millions of people and encourage them to get out the vote. The Campaign run by big guns like Robert Gibbs, David Plouffe and David Alexrod was masterful.

The monies to fund a disciplined, national campaign came from every corner of the United States. Both Bill and Hillary Clinton worked grueling hours making over 70 campaign stops for Barack Obama. Obama and Bill Clinton made a rare and effective campaign rally in Florida, a serious battleground state that had voted Republican in two controversial elections.

John McCain, a self professed “maverick” (4) who turned 72 years old during the Campaign ran a campaign based on reform, experience and “Country First”, rallying the social conservative base and independents. Known to be a bi-partisan reformer, it first appeared that he had good grounding when he picked Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. McCain also tried to distance himself from the Bush administration which had an over 76% disapproval rating in the US. However, it did not work. Describing herself as hockey mom, “pitbull in lipstick”, Sarah Palin was able to draw record crowds and appeal to the Christian evangelical conservative right. However, Palin was embroiled in controversy of her own. Back home in Alaska, Palin was involved in Troopergate, where it was alleged that she fired a state commissioner for safety for not firing her brother in law, a state trooper and her sister’s ex-husband. However, others had hoped that he would pick Mitt Romney of Utah. The blame game for the loss continues as we speak.

McCain’s choice was beginning to backfire, despite the huge crowds. Palin was eventually found to have violated state ethics in Alaska in the middle of the Campaign. This was a serious distraction along with her wardrobe costing more than US$150K, half of which was spent in one fell swoop at Neiman Marcus, an upscale department store. Further, it was leaked that US$21K of taxpayer money was spent to have the Palin family travel with her on “official business”. Many questioned why the children were not in school.

Palin also had a serious problems articulating her views with the press. In a series of gaffes, Palin was unable to recover from being seen as inexperienced, unprepared and “utterly unqualified” according to Newsweek editor Fareed Zakaria (5). One major problem was that McCain had only met Palin once and her pick for Vice President was widely criticized. As time wore on, Palin made a series of gaffes by contradicting McCain on stem cell research and global warming and a number of key platforms on which McCain ran. Indeed, in the latter days, CNN reported that “Palin had gone rogue” according to insiders of the GOP Republican Camp and was being described as a “diva” who was really blazing a trail for 2012.

In her stump speech at the RNC, Palin made a call to the then disaffected female Clinton supporters appealing to the “18 million cracks in the ceiling” but they were offended by the GOP offer of an inexperienced woman, indeed any woman, and rallied towards Obama. Indeed, the National Organization of Women in the USA endorsed Obama thereby renouncing Palin. Despite her reputation for cleaning up Alaska and reforming big oil, Palin did not take with the majority of voters, including women. In fact, a large part of the vote which went to an Obama landslide came from white women. The suburban white women vote also went to Obama.

In the vice presidential debate Palin relied heavily on notes, often winking at the crowd and using “folksy” language which she had hoped would broaden her appeal as a regular mom. It seemingly did not work for the mother of five and former Mayor of small town Wasilla, Alaska. Biden won that debate as Obama did with his debates with an often angry, stiff and anti-social McCain. Commentators made it clear that one week prior to the election with the polls showing Obama seven points ahead of McCain/Palin, they would need a “miracle”. McCain started his attack advertising in earnest calling Obama everything from a liberal radical and questioning his association with a one-time local militia turned University professor William Ayers; questioning his association with black liberation theology preacher Rev. Wright and suggesting that Obama was a socialist, Muslim, an Arab and friends with terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. The Americans responded in various CNN (6) polls that they were not pleased with the attack advertisements but Sarah Palin continued to attack Obama on a personal level on her campaign stops across the country and was even accused of inciting hate.

Only six percent of African Americans actually voted for McCain. The overwhelming majority of African Americans voted for Obama but they were slow to jump on the band wagon of Change. Perhaps only after key endorsements from African American super-delegates and leaders and with a win in sight, did the cynics among them actually buy into the hope he shared with the populace.

The cynicism of the African American experience is understandable. Many of their civil rights leaders had been killed and imprisoned over many years of the struggle for equal rights under the Constitution. The message of hope was probably not new but there something new about Barack Obama’s meteoric rise from a keynote speaker at the 2004 DNC to the Illinois Senate to now President-elect. He reinvigorated a new pride in African Americans and whites alike.

Both Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson had run for President to no avail and the fact that there was not much change since the 1964 Civil Rights Act made this voting block slightly indifferent. That was until, Obama beat Clinton in the primaries and then everyone was on board. The Obama campaign’s strong internet-driven campaign went after Hispanics, Asian-American, Arab-Americans, blue collar white males, the youth vote and indeed every American who could vote. In an overwhelming landslide victory on November 4th, the world appeared to weep with joy. The symbolic win of Obama was not lost on African Americans who were overwhelmed by the victory and shed many tears. Obama ran his platform on universal health care, jobs, education, tax cuts for 95% of the middle class, the economy and a number of other critical issues. It was the economy that turned the tide and paved the way for a sea change in the elections when just two months ago, the economy crashed under the weight of the sub-prime mortgage crisis. In a press conference on November 7th, 2008 , he reiterated his commitment to job creation, economic growth, a stimulus package, aid to the fledgling US auto industry and national security. He said he would work with “deliberate haste” on all the issues.

During the campaign and since he moved to transition he remained steady and unflappable Obama reacting with calm, resolve and determination while describing McCain as “erratic’. Just two weeks prior, McCain had described the economy as “fundamentally sound”. There was no turning back as McCain fell in the polls while Americans examined personal and domestic pocket book issues. In the end, the voters went for Barack Obama and he was nominated President-elect on November 4th.

In his acceptance speech to hundreds of thousands in Grant Park, Chicago, President elect Obama mentioned 106 year old Ann Nixon Cooper, because of passages of American history she would have witnessed. This was not lost on anyone of any race or creed.

“She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldn’t vote for two reasons - because she was a woman and because of the colour of her skin,” said the president-elect, before a rapturous crowd of more than 125,000 in Chicago’s Grant Park.

“And tonight, I think about all that she’s seen throughout her century in America - the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we can’t, and the people who pressed on with that American creed: ‘Yes we can’.”

Kim Young
Director of Communication, MA in Mass Communication from the University of Leicester, England.

References:

1. vs. Hilary, The Next Great Presidential Race, Dick Morris. Regan-Books, Harper-Collins Publishers, 2005.
2. Democratic National Convention.
3. www.barackobama.com
4. http://www.reuters.com
5. http://www.newsweek.com/id/161204, Zakaria, F., Newsweek Magazine,
6. Cable News Network, USA.

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