Publication date: Sunday, 2nd November, 2008
Opiyo Oloya
TOMORROW, Tuesday, November 4, the American presidential campaign comes to a conclusion. It took over two years of hard work, bitter politics and cut-throat maneuvering, and now the voters will decide whether John McCain or Barack Obama will be in the Oval Office in January 2009.
Whatever the decision, history will be made with either the first African American being elected to the Whitehouse or the first elected female vice-president.
I have followed the campaign through it ups and downs and I am ready to make a prediction today. And it is simply this: Tomorrow, America will make history by electing the first black president. Obama will win a majority to become the 44th president of the US.
In coming to the conclusion, I looked not only at the candidates, their message, but also their politics. To be sure, Republican Senator McCain was a credible candidate until he picked Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate, an ignoramus with provincial world view.
Moreover, when the US economy collapsed in September, McCain failed to offer coherent responses to the crisis. It was only in the last two weeks that McCain suddenly found his voice in the campaign, attacking Obama’s tax policies.
Unfortunately, and despite the avalanche of negative ads aimed at his opponent, McCain could not persuade enough Americans to abandon Barack Obama.
But, it was not just McCain’s fumbling with the campaign that paved Obama’s road to victory. If anything, Obama’s success came from a well executed presidential campaign that would have made Napoleon Bonaparte proud. In many ways, Obama turned every obstacle into an opportunity.
Being black, for example, meant he was suspect to many white Americans as specifically championing black issues over white issues.
Obama had to be comfortable in a black skin, without sounding bitter about who he is. He, in other words, had to make whites feel comfortable with his message by not raising the shoddy treatment of blacks in a dominant white society.
To overcome this problem, Obama launched his campaign squarely at the white middle class, speaking their language and tapping into their aspirations and hopes. At the Democratic Convention in 2004, Obama spoke for the white middle class, the demographic that he needed to woo to make a credible run for president.
However, remarkably, Obama also gambled that once he was accepted by white folks as it happened in Iowa, skeptical blacks would take a fresh look at him, and over time would fall in line to support him.
He figured that the enthusiasm among whites would help wipe out doubts among blacks tired of supporting the also-ran.
Indeed, as Obama picked up steam in the primaries, his support among African Americans grew to the current level of over 90%. Secondly, Obama needed a lot of money to run an expensive campaign.
Though he seemed to waver toward taking public financing of a little less than 90 million dollars, Obama opted to fundraise from donors. Here again, Obama was way ahead of all other candidates.
Using the Internet, he quickly amassed a gold-field of over a million and half supporters that he turned to often to provide funding.
Through the primary fight against the powerful machine of Hillary Clinton until today, Obama never lacked cash to do anything he wanted to do to sell himself. Obama will have raised more than half a billion dollars to seek the presidency of America. This is more than the GDP in many African countries.
With unlimited cash flow, Obama worked hard to mobilise volunteers to work for free in his campaign. Indeed, throughout the primaries and post-primary contests volunteering in the Obama campaign became a badge of honour for young and old alike.
Throughout the campaign, Obama instilled pure discipline among top advisors and rank and file.
There obviously were some few mistakes such as the free-trade comment from his advisor which allowed Hillary Clinton to accuse Obama of speaking “from two sides of his mouth,” and the “bitter comment” in which Obama was caught suggesting that people in rural America often cling to religion and guns in bad times.
Both comments were played up effectively by Hillary Clinton who went on to win the states of Ohio and Pennsylvania. But Clinton eventually lost to Obama who had clearly built a lead in smaller states that Clinton ignored.
From that very tough contest against Clinton in the primaries, Obama learned the value of being one step ahead of the opposition. Quite simply, Obama learned from the failure of Democrats Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004 that a serious contender must be nimble, fleet-footed to dodge fiery missiles from the opponent and be willing to trade blow for blow.
Though he generally appeared to play clean politics, Obama was capable and did mix it up with his opponent John McCain, dishing as much punishment as he got. For every negative smear hurled at him by the McCain campaign, Obama was quick to respond within a few hours.
However, when historians dissect Obama’s successful run for the White House, they will focus on one specific event — March 18, when Obama addressed Americans on the status of race. With his back pushed against the wall by the revelation of church minister Rev Jeremiah Wright, Obama chose to speak about race.
His speech placed him at a different level where he could both be trusted by white folks without being accused by blacks as a sell-out. Simply put, on that day, Obama transcended race — he was no longer the black candidate but an American running for president. His colour became a non-issue.
Opiyo.oloya@sympatico.ca
This article can be found on-line at: http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/8/20/657560
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