Decision 2008

The People Have Spoken
By Eric Meron

On January 20, 2009 change will arrive. The people of the United States have spoken and they have spoken loudly, by voting Barack Obama the next President of the United States.

Tuesday night was an historic night, not only did Obama win, but he won big. But that was not the reason it was historic. The best part of the evening was that Obama’s race was not the lead story. Obama becoming the first black President is a huge milestone and is not to be downplayed, but it was wonderful to see people of all ages and races get behind someone who they believed in.

This election was about the people and not the candidates. In the past it seemed as if the candidates would say look at what I will do, but this time they were saying look what I will do for you. We saw a candidate in Barack Obama that came off as someone who we could identify with and trust.

An interesting thing took place last night after Obama was declared President Elect. John McCain gave his concession speech and for those of us who did not vote for the man we got to see a side of him that was absent during his campaign. He was humble and showed great respect for Obama as well as his tremendous love for his country.

McCain used so many negative ads and used a smear campaign to a point where people lost the true vision of who this man was. If he had used more of this side of himself as opposed to the negative ads he may have even won the election.

The Obama acceptance speech was one for the ages. He spoke eloquently and brought a sense of hope that all of the voters were yearning for. During the speech all of the networks were showing images of the people from different parts of the country watching Obama as he spoke. What we saw was awe and respect, two things that this country has not seen when its past President was speaking. You could see in their faces that they believed.

It was overtly obvious that the people who voted for Obama were so very different than those who voted for McCain. When McCain mentioned Obama’s name in his speech the crowd booed and needed to be quieted down. When Obama mention McCain the polar opposite happened. People clapped to congratulate him on his run for the Presidency. This was the change in politics Obama spoke about.

This will hopefully be an election that changes the way our people operate forever. We began to realize that the parties are not important, but the people are. Oprah Winfrey spoke about how Chicago was vibrating the entire day. The polls show that the country was vibrating for an entire day.

The people were told they had a voice in this country and on November 4th they screamed at the top of their lungs. We will not be stuck in the past. A black man can be President and a Republican can vote Democrat and people can come together to share a single goal of making our country and the world a better place.

It’s time for a change and we, the people, need to learn and grow from this experience. Can we make a difference?

YES WE CAN.