This is it! Here we are. One more night away from the day of reckoning - not just for the new tenant in the Whitehouse, but also for the millions who’d been quarrelling the other side of their own identities. The relics of ideologies and party machinery ran themselves out of the race when two of the unlikeliest candidates took positions to commandeer their recalcitrant armies. It’s been an unusual journey for both Obama and McCain.
Obama fought off centuries old notions of race stereotypes to ride on an incredible wave of Americans’ yearning for change. Obama is the first person to admit the impossibility of chasing a dream more than anyone else. Yet the voters are ready to give hope a chance. Even if he wins, Obama might be overwhelmed by the weight of expectations or entangled in a web of garish visions. Or he may turn out to be just another smooth talker as is his wont.
I was listening to a rapper’s chant on the radio: “Martin Luther King walked, so Obama could run. And Obama ran in order for us to fly! For us to believe in ourselves and fly!”
There is something in the air for the beautiful black soul to rise from the abyss of history. And rise he must!
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McCain has had more lives than a cat! Having survived the most number of plane crashes, five years in a 5x5 prison in the NAM, threw his gambler’s dice to advance in career and personal life. He again fell on hard times when he faced off with Karl Rove led W campaign machine. Even in 2008, McCain was so broke that he had to disband his campaign office and he kept his candidacy alive literally on wife’s personal bank account. The right from center to the farthest had never given him a kind glance even once.
McCain campaign will most likely be known for its blatant negativity against Obama. Many will remember McCain for his barely concealed condescension towards Obama. Some even compared this as a classic case of modern oedipal drama played out in front of the whole world. Republican hate machine may have bought McCain’s soul. Economy has had him in a tight corner. Age may have added a final punch to the blow that took him out of his comfort zone. But what was quite evident was that McCain looked completely uncomfortable in his attacking avatar. Watching him on SNL had given me that bit of a tunneled vision of what could’ve been!
Whoever wins, this election season had given people a chance to grab a piece of history. I’ve never felt this good about democracy since Prague spring and the end of apartheid.
