How The Election Was Won - And What Now Mr. Obama?

(I wrote this just before Obama was elected to office).

November 3^rd, 2008 5:45 p.m. Desk of Byron Shirley, Common U.S. Citizen.

By this time tomorrow, the American populace should have elected Barack Obama as the newest President of the United States. This is both shocking and extremely well-deserved, because of the way Obama and his strategists—I always wonder how much of the end-result is directly of the candidate’s doing: Is it 10%? 25%? 50% couldn’t be more than that! -- ran his election campaign. Barack Obama, back in the latter part of ’07 (Yes! This campaign has lasted one, even TWO years!!) and beginning of ’08 was not even considered the leading candidate for the Democratic Nomination. That was Senator Hillary Clinton. He wasn’t even considered the runner-up—that was Sen. John Edwards.

Yet somehow, Barack Obama (How many of us knew of his name back in ’06, as a percentage of the population? 10%, maybe? And now?) came out of a group of respected and very well-known “career” politicians and made a swift impact. What is it that drove so many people toward him? We always speak of his message of hope, his charisma, but part of it, I think, may be fear of the direction this country is taking. (This is kind of an obvious and easy assumption: According to RealClearPolitics, 84.2% of those polled say the country is headed “In the wrong direction”, and InTrade Political “securities” lists Obama’s chances of being elected as the next president at 91.5%. That sounds pretty conclusive who’s going to win, and why people where looking for “change”.) Americans tend to make fear-based decisions, decisions “from the heart, not necessarily from what they think, but how they feel. Right now, they feel undeniably Blue. And the fear is obvious: America just may not be the #1, best country on Earth anymore, and that reality scares us. We’re more disliked than almost at any time in our short history, and stronger economies are coming out like China and India and even Russia—gasp!!- --that will take over as the world’s leaders.

So perhaps Obama came at the right time, with his “boring”, completely steady demeanor, his complete inability to be really shaken, even after Hillary and then McCain and his pet pit-bull-with-a-lipstick decided to go for the low blows (it was Hillary’s people, no less, who started the whole “Obama is a Muslim, and he’s been associated with a known terrorist” gimmick.) Obama came out and conveyed his message of HOPE, and became a symbol for normalcy. (How would scared and pissed-off Americans have responded to Obama in 2001, when we were all out for blood? Likely, not as well.) The Little Senator That Could, under the “CHANGE” banner, built a powerful campaign based partly on old-school campaigning but also on a new trend of DIY campaigning, where thousands of individuals motivated just motivated enough could meet and organize on the internet, create a page at My.BarackObama.com (I created mine in 10 minutes…and raised $275.00 for Obama’s campaign http://my.barackobama.com/page/outreach/view/main/byronforobama). Howard Dean, one of the Democratic candidates in ’04 showed the promise of the most powerful medium of the new millennium, but with his website and the backing of the likes of MoveOn.org, Barack Obama really did harness the Internet to his advantage. He saw that people, if given the ability to do so, could organize for a common purpose, even if they were just simple folks. And all of a sudden, the election wasn’t all about raising as much cash through wealthy donors, although Obama did plenty of that, too. Barack Obama was able to run the first privately financed Presidential campaign in three decades, and he did it with many contributors giving $100or less. (For September’s record-setting $150 million haul was ONE-QUARTER of contributors giving $100 or less. See a review of the money raised by Obama’s campaign so far at http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/summary.php?id=N00009638).

It is with this energy, all this “political capital” and goodwill from the American people that we are sending Barack Obama to the Presidency of the United States of America, as the first Black President, no less. It is my hope that Obama will take his great, enthusiastic and calming personality and change this country into what it has been, can and should be: a beacon of fairness and equality, a country strong in values and one that recognizes to respect its people more than its corporations. Let’s invest in the Enterprise of People, for once, shall we?

Thank you Barack Obama, now it’s time to make true CHANGE happen.

-Byron Shirley

PS Yes, we will win tomorrow:

Bush Vs. John Kerry Chart, back in 2004: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Presidential_04/chart3way.html

And now, McCain Vs. Barack Obama, in 2008:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/us/general_election_mccain_vs_obama-225.html#chart