Barack Obama, President-Elect of the United States

How extra-ordinary, how surprisingly moving it’s been to watch footage of events in the United States yesterday, when Barack Obama became President elect of the United States. It’s been a long time since An Spailpín could afford to be an idealist and as such proved resistant to Obama-mania as it swept through the summer and autumn months. I even remember being in Phil Ryan’s bar on the North Circular Road and remarking to a veteran Midwestern Democrat who had been out on the stump for Hubert H. Humphrey that I feared the Democrats had selected themselves another Adlai Stevenson – a lovely man but utterly unelectable. I can only hope if that proud American reads this he can deliver your Spailpín the fool’s pardon.

There’s a very good article in this morning’s Washington Post about the election, and how the economic collapse delivered the White House to the Democrats. McCain was riding high in the polls after trumping Obama’s convention speech with his selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate, but the economic crisis changed all the rules.

McCain went to Washington to sort it out, but when he returned with one hand as long as the other McCain suddenly looked like a busted flush. And An Spailpín can’t help but get the feeling that McCain himself knew it – one of the significant moments of the election was footage from one of McCain’s town hall meetings when a lady who may not take the New York Times every morning remarked that Barack Obama was an Arab; McCain took the mike off her and paid an eloquent tribute to his opponent, something that you can’t really afford to do when you’re the underdog in a two horse race.

John McCain was unfortunate – not for the first time in his life – in being in the wrong place at the wrong time as the wheel of history turned. He is a patriot, a man that took one for his Uncle Sam and who was smeared shamefully in the North Carolina primary by the Bush campaign in 2000. Interestingly, his greatest contribution to his country, now in the autumn of a life of service to the flag, may be in how nobly he conducted his campaign, never resorting to cheap shots or dirty campaigning. In everything he has done, he has put his country first.

The entire campaign was run by both candidates with such nobility, dignity and patriotism that it’s hard not to think that the shade of Pericles himself may have allowed himself a smile. One of the highlights, one of the great moments of hope, in the campaign was the Al Smith dinner, when the candidates ribbed each other in their speeches with such dignity, such wit and good humour, and such a tremendous level of respect for each other, that you couldn’t help but think that there may be hope for us all yet. And even the most dedicated hater of Sarah Palin had to admire Palin’s moxie – such an American word! – for sharing a stage with her arch-tormentrix, Tina Fey, on Saturday Night Live.

Tina Fey herself came up with one of the great lines of the campaign when she remarked, in character, that listening to Obama was like “listening to angel whisper in your ear.” Watching the President elect in Chicago’s Grant Park address his faithful and attempt to sum up his journey – with a possibly even more arduous one ahead of him – it was hard not to think that Fey, as ever, was exactly on the money. He really is a beautiful, beautiful public speaker.

An Spailpín is not himself a black American and has been spared a Bono complex by a merciful God but it has been extraordinary to see the reaction among major figures in that community, not least Condoleeza Rice, who gave a press conference today in which she nearly broke down in tears of joy. And Condi is on the other side entirely.

And that’s what makes all this so thrilling. The thrilling thing is that democracy does work. That anybody can be President. That there are no barriers to talent. That if you work hard, you can get there. That everybody has a shot.

It always fashionable to deride America, to say the United States was just as bad as her enemies, ignoring the fact that every four years America elects who she wants, and nothing comes in the way of that process. Lincoln was right when he said that freedom was of the people, by the people and for the people and every four years America underlines this. Nothing comes in the way of that. She has made her decision how, and all the world must hope that the road rises for the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama.





Technorati Tags: politics, US President, US Election, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, John McCain, Sarah Palin

Five Reasons Why Sarah Palin Will Elect President John McCain

If there is anything other than weeping, gnashing of teeth and rending of garments tonight in the headquarters of the Democratic Party of the United States of America then that Party is in even worse trouble than it already appears. If they are tearing their hair out at least they realise the task ahead; if they are not, they’re in for an even greater tonking at the polls because they don’t know what’s going to hit them.

When the Democrats shot themselves in the foot by not picking the best candidate for the job, Senator Clinton, your thoughtful correspondent and avaricious watcher of world affairs invested a small sum at 7/4 on a McCain win. Now that Senator McCain has destroyed any chance of a post-Convention bounce for Senator Obama by sensationally nominating Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate, An Spailpín Fánach is reasonably certain that, barring catastrophe, John McCain will be the 44th President of the United States.

Palin’s nomination is a masterstroke, a move of genius, and a reminder that the Republicans play the political game better than anybody else. The Democrats, by contrast, are innocent as spring lambs. If they were a more reality based group, they would realise that while the Clinton family might not be The Waltons, Senator Clinton represented the Democrats’ greatest chance to beat the Republicans in the election. Senator Clinton had been working on this for thirty-five years and there is no defeat, no setback, no humiliation that she did not overcome. This meant that she was bullet proof, bombproof and flame-retardant for everything, everything, that the Republicans could throw at her.

What was her reward? She was smacked in the small of the back by her own, by a man who has done nothing except talk about himself (the fundamental emptiness of the Obama candidacy is exposed by Charles Krauthammer in the Washington Post this morning rather better than I could ever manage. You go, Chuck). Senator Clinton even said it herself – she had prepared for everything except the prospect of being seriously challenged for the nomination. By the time she realised the danger and recalibrated her guns, it was too late.

The Republicans, by contrast, are fully alive to the danger, and have had time to prepare their arsenal. It will be substantial, as today’s masterstroke proved.

What has the nomination of Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska, done in terms of the Presidential race? It has done five things.

Firstly, it denied a post-convention bounce to Senator Obama after the Democratic Convention in Denver. It’s an interesting thing too about Senator Obama, and something the Democrats themselves must have noticed – every time Senator Obama was expected to finally sweep Senator Clinton away in the Primaries, she always came back. He’s always threatened, but never delivered. With the press fawning over his every move, Senator Obama should be ahead, not be neck and neck in the polls – he needed the bounce as much as John Kerry did four years ago (for all the good it did Kerry, of course). Now that’s gone – this weekend will be all about Senator Palin, who she is, her career, her favourite cookie recipes, and endless soul-searching from the feminist movement about where a sister’s duty lies.

Which is victory number two for the McCain campaign. RTÉ’s very able Washington Correspondent, Robert Shortt, said on the nine o’clock news just now that it would be naïve to expect all of the Clinton Democrats to switch sides for a sister, and this is correct. But some of them by golly will, and this is enough for the Republicans. They know they won’t win over the bloc, but they will break it up, and that’s just as good.

The third victory of the Palin nomination is that she will neutralise or destroy the Democrats’ Senator Biden in the Vice Presidential debate unless she is an utter dummy, which is unlikely. Senator Biden, you may remember, is an uninspiring figure whose only purpose was to be Obama’s heavy when the fighting got dirty. Biden was to wield the knuckle-duster. But he can’t do that if he’s debating with a woman. Cultures don’t change overnight, and the spectacle of a man trying to bully a woman will have only winner when the voters are making up their minds – especially the white blue collar voters who are left so very cold by Senator Obama. And if Governor Palin takes Senator Biden in the debate, instead of just holding her own – well, my goodness.

The fourth victory of the McCain campaign is one that was missed by Robert Shortt on the Nine O’Clock News, and by Krauthammer in the Washington Post’s snap reaction pages. Both men maintain the fact that Governor Palin is three years younger than Senator Obama will negate the Republicans’ attacks of inexperience against Obama. But experience isn’t about age, it’s about achievement. While Senator Obama has done nothing, Ms Palin has governed Alaska. For a little less than two years, granted, but she has had hands-on gubernatorial experience.

No Senator has been elected President of the United States since John F. Kennedy in 1960; everyone else has been either a former VP, an incumbent or a Governor. Nixon and Reagan were Governors of California, Jimmy Carter was Governor of Georgia and Bill Clinton was Governor of Arkansas. So, instead of giving the Democrats an let-off on the experience stakes, the Republican ticket is even more experienced, not less. Krauthammer’s point about Sarah Palin’s being a heartbeat away from the Presidency damaging the McCain campaign is negated somewhat by the fact that Dan Quayle was Vice President for four years.

The fifth victory is a superficial one, but significant none the less. And that is that Senator McCain now looks younger, because any man in the company of a good looking woman always looks more vital. It’s not terribly rational, but the human condition is not always governed by the rational. During a weekend when the Democrats should have been listening to their engines revving, they’ve only found out just how terribly high the mountain ahead is to climb.





Technorati Tags: politics, US President, US Election, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, John McCain, Sarah Palin