In Barack Obama’s triumph clinching the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, one thing is for sure, Americans from different backgrounds can take pride in the United States Senator from Illinois overcoming one of the US most enduring racial barriers. Obama’s historical win was best described by one Philadelphia newspaper when in it notes in editorial: “His groundbreaking step is an extraordinary achievement for a candidate, for the Democratic Party, and for anyone who ever believed that this day would come. Obama broke through a colour barrier that has existed in this nation for 219 years.
The United States has had 43 presidents – whitemen. Now Obama is in position to break the commander-in-chief barrier. “ Obama’s win did not come easy. He won the primaries in one of the hotly contested primaries in recent memory. Apart from being a very historical event, it is the fact the man whose umbilical cord hail from Alego, beat the Clinton machine. Kenyans need to appreciate the fact that it is no mean feat for any politician in the United States, white or black, to beat the ‘Clinton Brand’. Obama was running against two Clintons. Clinton the candidate, Hillary, a two-term senior workaholic senator from the state of New York, and the country’s immediate former very influential First Lady. The other Clinton, William Jefferson (a.k.a Bill), a former two-term popular president of the United States, and a longtime governor of Arkansas. Obama, who has been on the national stage for less than 3 years, ran one of best campaigns in the history of the United States presidential primaries.
He created a movement where everyone has been interested to join as volunteer. The Democratic Party primaries was indeed good for America, it generated record voter turn out and spoke for minorities and women who have traditionally been left out during elections. Let us not forget that the benefit of competing with the two Clintons for Obama was that it has sharpened the junior senator to become a strong presidential candidate to face Republican Party’s candidate Senator John McCain, a celebrated war hero but with nothing new to offer. Now Obama is standing on the threshold of making history of becoming the first non-whiteman to be the president of the world’s most powerful nation in the history of the world.
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Commentary & Analysis
Updated on: Sunday, June 08, 2008
Story by: OMAR ALI
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