The Amercan Elections: If Obama Enters the White House

The last polls before the November 4 election have constantly predicted a win for Obama; the United States understands the importance of his candidacy.

From the millions of dollars donated, the tens of millions of spectators in the stands for the last meetings of the campaign, to the thousands of volunteers going door-to-door in the key states… never has a presidential campaign in the United States given rise to such enthusiasm among the Americans and commentators. It is because the choice to be made on Tuesday, November 4 by the citizens of the country of Uncle Sam is larger than any such race between two candidates planned for under the American Constitution.

It is not only a choice between a Democrat and a Republican, but a decision whether to send – or not to send – to the White House the son, as Obama wrote in his autobiography, of “a man as black as carbon, and a woman as white as milk,” whose last name isn’t Walker, Jefferson, or Fitzgerald, but Hussein.

A man of color at the head of the primary world power: the symbolism is particularly strong, for America and for the rest of the globe. Can the United States cross the line?

This Election is in Fact a Referendum

Fifty years after the beginning of the fight for civil rights, forty years after the assassination of Martin Luther King, will the Americans dare to write history and accomplish that which, until very recently, was still unthinkable? A man who, as a young child, did not have the right to sit at the table of the whites in much of the country, can he become the president?

More than a match between Obama and McCain, this election is in fact a referendum, for or against the senator from Illinois. For many weeks, the Republican camp has given up talking about their platform. John McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin are content to attack their adversary, accusing him of keeping poor company and being nothing but a “socialist” eager to “redistribute the wealth,” a concept which is always suspect in the United States.

“In normal times, this argument would work,” estimates James Ceasar, professor of political science at the University of Virginia. “One shouldn’t forget that Barack Obama is one of the farthest left candidates the Democratic Party has endorsed for several years. But taking into account the financial and economic crisis, the record unpopularity of President Bush, I don’t know if, this year, that’s enough. The people want change-without knowing exactly what they want and what that change will entail. For Barack Obama, image is very important.”

The entire country is holding its breath, but the anxiety is still stronger in the black community, a community which is conscious of the historic nature of this election. A community which is equally conscious of the result of failure, the opportunity will not necessarily reoccur soon.

“His victory, it would be unbelievable”

Even so, Barack Obama is not a traditional black American: he was not born into that culture, which is immersed to its roots in slavery and in the urban ghettos. His father was Kenyan, his mother, a white woman from Kansas, and he was raised in Hawaii by his maternal grandparents.

But, the young senator was quickly adopted, along with his wife, Michelle, into the poor black neighborhood of Chicago, in which he worked and was considered by the African-American community to be one of theirs.

“His victory, it would be unbelievable,” explains Brenda, a nurse in the suburbs of Washington and a fan from the first hour. “Not because he would lead policy for us. Certainly not, he would be the president of all. But because I would be able to say to my kids: ‘Look, you can do what you want. Nothing is impossible if you want it.’ And not only in sports or music…”

Obama has Taken Care to Avoid the Clichés of the “Angry Black Man.”

But for this America, the scope of a victory by Barack Obama would not stop there. A serious change of view from that of the historic leaders has taken place with discretion in this election. A discretion that is shown in the refusal of the Democratic candidate to appear as “the black candidate”- since he began his candidacy he has taken care to avoid the clichés of the “angry black man” in order to be able to claim to incarnate the hopes of all.

But this is a discretion that also shows the divergence of the base. “He doesn’t come across like other black activists,” explains Reuben Brigety, Democratic activist and researcher in a liberal think tank, the Center for American Progress in Washington. “Notably, he tells black fathers to assume their responsibility to their wives and their children. As for me, I know that my children are already a part of the 30% best off in the black community because they live with both of their parents. No one forces us to have kids and abandon them with their mothers. But Jesse Jackson and the members of the old school don’t like this kind of speech: for them, it’s entirely an affair of discrimination, economic and social. A victory for Barack Obama would be a slap for them.”