In the beginning — who even knew his name? He was a Black candidate who was inexperienced, new to the political scene, lacking in connections higher up, and facing a list of heavyweight contenders like Sen. Hillary Clinton — but from the way the votes fell Tuesday night, the majority strongly sided with Obama over McCain — there is no question who Americans trust to lead them out of this economy and this war. Welcome, President Obama, our first Black President, our first U.S. president from Hawaii.
It is amazing, the confidence that our people have for this man.
There isn’t another person out there right now that better exemplifies the fact that hard work pays off — it can pay off big time. One thing we’ve appreciated most about Obama’s campaign is that he worked from the ground up, and he worked strategically.
Polls have shown that over the past four decades, white voters typically are not majority Democrat voters. Rather than trying to chip away at traditional voting constituents, Obama made good on his words by looking towards sectors that have been untapped.
The young and minority voters came out Tuesday night in unprecedented numbers.
Obama drew a fair bit of criticism early on for his grassroots, youth-oriented campaigning. Detractors told him it was a waste of time. Young people don’t vote so don’t alienate the voters that actually matter. The numbers speak for themselves.
McCain drew the same amount of votes as President Bush during 2004’s Bush-Kerry election — but McCain lost key swing states because this time around, his opponent’s numbers were even more impressive. Credit should be given to Obama for being able to inspire a whole generation into activism, into the belief that we as individuals don’t have to settle with our lots.
We choose to be optimistic. We look forward to how he will change the political scene. We look forward to a new kind of leadership, a new management of America.
We look to the future. What is notable in this election is how the Republican Party adopted Obama’s ‘change’ message. They want to change the White House, they said.
We should feel encouraged. We should look towards bipartisanship. We should find a government that is closer to the middle, where parties work with one another instead of against one another, for the good of the American people.
We look forward to no more excuses. Obama has established that never again in America will there be a justification for ‘I can’t.’
Congratulations to the Black community — many have worked tirelessly for him. Congratulations to the Latino community — a constituency that voted for President Bush in 2004 but turned out Tuesday night voting an impressive two-to-one for Obama. Congratulations to our community. So many of us have stood in the rain urging people to vote. So many of us sacrificed our time for his campaign.
Our race holds one of the biggest immigrant populations. Many of us are young enough to remember the days of forced segregation and anti-miscegenation laws. Many of us remember when we were expelled from Tacoma, when we were imprisoned in internment camps. Today, all Asian Americans can be confident in finally knowing how it feels to have a voice in the White House that will speak for immigrants.
Today, we can believe that the tenets of our Constitution, the ideologies that this country was founded upon — that every American is granted the same civil rights, that every individual is equal, that these rights are inalienable — actually apply to us. Now we can say that we truly believe that America is the best nation on earth. Now we can believe that America’s best is yet to come. (end)