Obama will have to cause a new dialogue and promote international peace through negotiations rather the Bush Doctrine of “my way of the highway.” He is going to have to continue to engage the American people and build on his young adult voter base that in the election demonstrated just how out of touch and unsellable that John McCain was by voting for Obama 66 percent to McCain’s 32 – a difference of 34 percentage points.
This is Obama’s constituency and he’s energized them. This is a technologically savvy new generation of American voters who saw the Republican Party and John McCain as soon-to-be extinct political dinosaurs. Of course, Obama capitalized and benefitted from the Republican Party’s exclusionary behavior and its seeming inability to embrace and develop racial and ethnic diversity within its ranks as a deliberate policy given the shifting demographic realities of the country. Case in point: of all the candidates put up by the GOP to contest senate and Congressional seats not one was Black. All of the top campaign positions in John McCain’s presidential run were white.
Finally, Obama has perfected the use of modern technology in political campaign. He has married politics to technology. He is in his element in this instant, text-messaging generation. He has redefined the way that campaigns will be done in America for ever. While John McCain and the Republicans used more traditional voter contact strategies like direct mail and robo-calls, Obama did more to get out the vote and help make up people’s minds by doing a 30-minute infomercial on prime TV than any number of robo calls could do.
In this election the Democratic Party put its technological edge to effective use. Obama has taken internet fundraising to new and dizzying heights and he’s check-mated the foul-mouthed radio talk show hosts that is part of the GOP’s machine. He used technology to build an army of volunteers and campaign workers with the ability to communicate with them instantly through text-messaging. This is going to be an even greater challenge for Republicans when facing Obama for a second time.
Obama also redefined and revolutionized just how modern political campaigns will be run in the future. His campaign was built on a disciplined, steady, corporate campaign management style. And the early decision to not concede any “red state,” and to develop a more ambitious map than other Democratic nominees was the source of his mandate. , McCain and his campaign lagged far behind Obama in every key metric — money, organization, discipline — and failed to embrace Obama's organizational model or the technology his campaign borrowed from the private sector.
The fact is President Obama is a member of this new geek generation – he’s smart, intelligent and in-tune with the latest technology from cell phones to video-conferencing. He used technology to broaden and widen the racial and ethnic base of the Democratic Party in a way that suggests a permanent change. For the Republican Party is has become a serious impediment to its growth and transformation. Again, the election’s statistics prove this fact: 67 percent of Hispanics voted for Barack Obama as opposed to 31 percent for McCain. And the GOP will enter this new session of Congress without a single Black member.
The tasks ahead for President Barack Obama are daunting and many. From global warming, Wall Street’s shenanigans, the international image of the United States, AIDS, poverty, proxy wars and an American economy in trouble he’s going to have his hands filled. But I have every confidence that this young, extremely talented and visionary president will redefine and re-align the United States and this world in a way that will bring a lasting and enduring change – which we can believe in. In the end audacity won. Now Barack Obama must validate the hope and deliver the change he promised.
He's already changed America by becoming the first Black man to win the White House. His challenge is to change the course of its government and guide it through hard times and past the financial crisis he inherits as he takes office.
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