So the people have spoken and elected their new President yesterday!
My favorite candidate John McCain did not get the votes necessary for that task and nevertheless managed to get 49% of the popular vote!
51% of Americans able to vote had chosen the democratic nominee!
I must confess that since my young adult years in Paris , in the early seventies, after reading that best seller written by Irving Wallace, I had lost hope that an African-American man could be sitting at the White House!
Of course in the novel of Irving Wallace, published in 1964, “ The Man” , Senator Douglass Dilmann, the President pro tempore of the Senate became the first American black President according to the Presidential Succession Act of 1947…and was to become a true very good President of all the USA!
But yesterday ,44 years after that book was written , a Man of african descent was elected President of the USA by popular vote for the first time!
And so I congratulate him !
After the euphoria of that victory will settle, a lot of things will be waiting for President elect Obama to handle and the challenges are huge. Will he deliver all the goods he promised during his fantastic campaign ? that will be a miracle!
…because the opposition from abroad in terms of breaking the free trade agreements, the removal of all NATO peace keeping troops and Americans GI’s from combat zones, the entire restructuring of financial markets and investors confidence will be there confronting his new Presidency.
Those international challenges waiting in the Oval Office will be tantamount! they will certainly give him gray hair like all Presidents before him!No doubt about that!
Does Obama have the spine to withstand so many challenges, time will tell. I,for one,hope so because the USA need to have a very good and strong leader for the rest of the free world!
John McCain could not master the formidable Tsunami of financial collapse in Wall Street and all subsequent tremors afterwards. He did fight as usual and he did behave like a man of honor!
One thing for sure, I am glad it is over!
But I wish it did not have to come with such a price tag: two billions dollars, that’s a lot of money to spend for a seat of ultimate leadership, the man elected must be worth that price.
40 millions poor Americans could certainly use that kind of money.
Anyhow, God bless America and his newly elected president, Barack Obama.
Elie, mtl
I feel bad for McCain. He’s a true hero and deserved better. But deserve doesn’t have much to do with anything really. He made some mistakes and Palin ended up being more of a liability in the long run. The media just ate her up for breakfast. Sure the conservative base liked her but they wouldn’t vote for Obama regardless. After the ABC interview that she totally tanked, polls show that the undecided started to leave McCain.
That plus George Bush’s horrible legacy was too much for McCain to handle. When run for the same party as the most unpopular President in modern times you will suffer greatly. And it shows. The Republicans have been reduced from the House, Senate and now the White House. Blame Bush’s lame duck presidency of the past 4 years.