Into this maelstrom of forces, a audacious young man decided to thrust himself. In the parlance of horse-racing, he was never given a chance of even getting out from the gate. There was the attitude that it wasn’t your turn yet, you haven’t earned your stripes to be a player in this game, more so on the Clintons, who felt that they had done so much for the black community, which I debunked in an earlier article, for a black man to have the audacity or rather the effrontery to challenge their rightful claim to the presidency. But the bubble of the aura of inevitability was burst on the night of January 3, when Iowans dealt a blow to the Clinton brand, by giving a skinny freshman senator with an African father and a white mother, a resounding send-off to the claim of the Democratic nomination, and hopefully and assuredly to the presidency of the United States of America, and by extension a leader of the world by the status of the United States of America as the only powerful superpower left today in the world.
“America, this is our moment. This is our time. Our time to turn the page on the policies of the past. Our time to bring new energy and new ideas to the challenges we face. Our time to offer a new direction for the country we love.
The journey will be difficult. The road will be long. I face this challenge with profound humility, and knowledge of my own limitations. But I also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people. Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth. This was the moment - this was the time - when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves, and our highest ideals. Thank you, God Bless you, and may God Bless the United States of America.”
With the above words, Senator Barack Obama, the first-term Illinois Democratic Senator, claimed victory over the highly and viciously contested Democratic primary elections, against the formidable Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York. In the annals of world history, nothing remotely approaching this seismic eruption has ever occurred, and it wasn’t supposed to have occurred. It was a story and an occurrence of biblical proportions, of David versus Goliath, with David and his bow and arrow slaying the giant Goliath.
To understand the degree of Obama’s accomplishments, it is necessary to examine the forces he fought against and won. He fought against Senator Hillary Clinton, the former first lady of America, whose husband former President Bill Clinton is the only Democratic President to have won consecutive elections for president since Roosevelt. Bill and Hillary Clinton were the Democratic Party, until Tuesday night when Obama claimed victory and became the leader of the party. Bill Clinton, during his reign in office, made Americans feel good about themselves, creating more than 22 million jobs, paying off the national debt and having a balance of payment, in contrast to the trillions of debt that the current President has created. Despite his sexual problems he was beloved by the black community, to the extent that African-American author and Nobel Prize winner, Toni Morrison declared him, the first black president. Globally, he was beloved, witness the amount of money he commands for speaking to audiences around the world, having between him and his wife accumulated more than $109 million in fees and book sales since leaving office.
Senator Hillary Clinton, on her part, is no slouch. She had seen herself as a co-President during President Clinton’s first term in office, when she tried to ram the health care bill down the throat of Congress. She failed woefully. However, that didn’t stop or diminish her stature. In fact, she was so powerful and formidable that New York’s most powerful politician, Congressman Charlie Rangel invited her to run for the vacant senate seat in New York State. She never lived in New York, she was still the first lady, and her opponent was so-called America’s Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. But as Giuliani later found out, he couldn’t compete against the aura and power of then Mrs. Hillary Clinton, and mercifully dropped out. She easily defeated her Republican opponent. She again won re-election in a landslide.
There was another powerful force arrayed against Barack Obama. It was his blackness, the fact that no black man has ever attempted what he tried to do and won, including Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rev. Al Sharpton. Both candidates failed although Mr. Jackson did a little better, even taking his fight to the Democratic Convention. Another element was the fear on the part of the black community of the assassination of black leaders who have tried to rise up. The fear translated into their not wanting anything to harm Obama, translating their loyalty rather to the Clintons, to the extent that 57% of Blacks preferred Clinton to Obama’s 37% before whites in Iowa showed that a black man could win election in a state that is 95% white.
Then again, there was the aura of inevitability of a crowning of Senator Clinton as the Democratic nominee. She had the power, she had the prestige, she had the money, she had the name recognition, she had her husband as a formidable campaigner on her side, with experiences of battles fought and won against the mighty Republican attack machine.
Into this maelstrom of forces, a audacious young man decided to thrust himself. In the parlance of horse-racing, he was never given a chance of even getting out from the gate. There was the attitude that it wasn’t your turn yet, you haven’t earned your stripes to be a player in this game, more so on the Clintons, who felt that they had done so much for the black community, which I debunked in an earlier article, for a black man to have the audacity or rather the effrontery to challenge their rightful claim to the presidency. But the bubble of the aura of inevitability was burst on the night of January 3, when Iowans dealt a blow to the Clinton brand, by giving a skinny freshman senator with an African father and a white mother, a resounding send-off to the claim of the Democratic nomination, and hopefully and assuredly to the presidency of the United States of America, and by extension a leader of the world by the status of the United States of America as the only powerful superpower left today in the world.
How ironic that the nation that saw the black man as nothing but the beasts of burden, good only for tilling the soil, and plucking them from Africa to be their slaves, should be the first nation to have its leader as black man is a great narrative for the ages. Indisputably, there is a lot to be said about a “Audacity of Hope,” which has carried Senator Barack Obama to his quest for the greatest prize on earth - POTUS.
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