Today, America votes. We, as a country, head to the polls and turn our political wishes into votes for a candidate. No matter who wins the Presidential Election as a result of those votes cast today, history will be made.
Barack Obama burst onto the political scene in a way rarely scene. In a circle usually reserved for those who have paid their dues and networked themselves senseless, Obama came from nowhere.
Obama’s defining moment, with regards to his Presidential ambitions, came four years before his Presidential campaign, during the Presidential Election of 2004. At a convention where John Kerry accepted the Democratic Party’s nomination to run for President against incumbent George W. Bush, Barack Obama delivered the keynote speech and it was, arguably, the speech of a lifetime.
At the time, many in close political circles, and even a few in not-so-close circles and the media, started mumbling about a future President Obama. This young, charismatic man had energized a crowd and, subsequently, a political party.
With Kerry’s loss to Bush, the road was paved for Obama to fully arrive on the scene for this year’s Presidential Election. Soon enough, he announced his intentions and ran against Senator Hillary Clinton in the Democratic Primary. After a long contested primary, Obama won his party’s nomination and turned to the Presidential Election.
Beyond Obama’s quick rise to political fame, what makes his run for President historic is that he’s black. While people such as Reverend Jesse Jackson and Reverend Al Sharpton have run for President in one way or another in elections past, Barack Obama became the first African American to secure the nomination of a major political party. This, just over 45 years after Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. A dream, indeed.
While Barack Obama’s rise to the nomination was meteoric, John McCain‘s was more prolonged. After serving his country in the military and enduring torture as a P.O.W., McCain found his way into politics. He was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1982 and subsequently to the U.S. Senate in 1986. He has represented the state of Arizone in Congress for the last 26 years.
With an unsuccessful run for President in 2000 Republican Primary, McCain’s Presidential story started much like many other past nominees. And, much like several past nominees, McCain was finally able to secure the Republican nomination after his campaign was written off as dead following a poor showing in Iowa.
Many pundits said McCain wouldn’t be able to recover from the Iowa results. Many said his campaign just wouldn’t be able to survive to even try to recover. In fact, with McCain’s campaign struggling in the early part of the Republican primary, he had to cut staff and watch as the campaign failed to bring in money like his fellow candidates. In politics, there is no surer sign of a dead campaign than cutting staff and failing to bring in money.
But, the death of the McCain campaign was not to be. He went on to win state after state in surprising fashion. And, finally, after many failed attempts, John McCain was the Republican Party’s candidate for President. But, with his middle-of-the-road politics, the pundits said he couldn’t win the Presidency.
John McCain describes himself as a maverick, someone who bucks conventional wisdom. After trying to rally the Republican base, McCain showed how much he’s willing to go against the norm by choosing Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate.
Thrust onto the political scene, Sarah Palin was the strongly conservative candidate the Republican ticket needed. And, the Presidential election quickly turned into guaranteed history. The country would either have its first black President or its first woman Vice President.
But the history doesn’t stop there.
Similar to what happened to McCain during the Republican primaries, the pundits started to question his campaign. Polls that showed America, particularly Republicans, loving McCain and Palin in late August and early September started to trend in the opposite direction as time moved along.
If the Post-Iowa Experience in the Republican primary was tough for John McCain, then October was horrific; even well before Halloween. The polls were trending in Obama’s favor and, slowly but surely, states that George Bush won in 2004, like Colorado and New Mexico, were leaning more and more towards Obama. Then, states like Virginia and North Carolina became toss-ups or even in favor of Obama after over 40 years of voting for a Republican.
The wheels were coming off the campaign, said the pundits. Obama in a landslide, said the pundits. The Obama campaign’s money was just too much to overcome, said the pundits. Then a strange thing happened: the polls started moving back towards center; towards McCain.
And that’s where things stood as of this morning. Nothing was wrapped up. Nothing was set in stone. Everything was up for grabs.
Despite this, history will be made. At the end of the election, the Nation will have its first black President or its first woman Vice President. And, if John McCain pulls out a victory over Barack Obama, the Nation will have seen a comeback the likes of which we haven’t seen since “Dewey Defeats Truman.”
Only time will tell, but it’s a great feeling to be part of a once-in-a-generation election with such large historical significance.
