Wilberne Persaud, Financial Gleaner Columnist
Within the preamble to the United States Constitution are these powerful words: "We the People ... in order to form a more perfect Union".
President-elect Barak Obama believes in them and has used them often in the past 21 months.
As Obama utters them, they don't come across as puff; he ably puts meaning, brings them alive in their representation of revolutionary thinking and a political philosophy that creates the potential environment for that more perfect Union.
From the time of his convention speech in 2004 it was obvious Obama had a future in national politics. Indeed, a friend of mine named his newborn son for Obama.
In our discussion he noted what he thought of as Karl Rove's prowess as a political strategist and operator.
I did not concur because as I said to him then, that divide and conquer strategy had merely short-term impact. He asked what then did I think politics was all about, if not a series of short-term positions. That discussion did not go on much longer for Obama was too important.
History maker
Obama has steeped himself in US history, the civil war, reflections and speeches of significant players in their striving to advance sometimes partisan positions, sometimes national, sometimes patriotic positions to do with race and race relations.
How else does one interpret his pledge that: "We may not get there in one year or even in one term. But, America, I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there." These are echoes from Martin Luther King delivered in elocution entirely worthy of the civil rights and Ghandian proponent of peace - an eye for an eye makes us all blind.
But Obama has mountains to climb. I am confident that he has the ability to make it not like the task of Sisyphus, but that of Tenzing Norgay Sherpa on Mt Everest in the Himalayas. Tenzing said of his haunting desire: "I needed to go . . . the pull of Everest was stronger for me than any force on earth."
Imagine the audacity of Obama defined as black, though of bi-racial origins, at his age deciding to confront the Clintons - the undisputed leaders of the Democratic Party - in a bid for the US presidency.
It was that audacity coupled with the assumed coronation of the Clintons that in part worked in his favour.
His community organising and advisers that some call lieutenants, the two Davids, Plouffe and Axelrod, placed him in a position to fill the cavernous void created by an assault on liberty and trust destroyed by Rovian and Cheney excesses.
Combatants
Weapons of mass destruction, mushroom clouds, unending war and fear, political firing of US attorneys, utterly unconstitutional unitary presidency that leads to the definition 'enemy combatants' who may simply have been 'captured' while on holiday in Afghanistan and finally the canker that is Guantanamo Bay all created a kind of national bewilderment that his message of change and hope has been able to overcome.
And as if by some deus ex machina comes the Wall Street meltdown in the final boil of the campaign.
There is no need now to punditise on McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as running mate, the lurching of that campaign as if on a random walk, nor the Reverend Wright his mentor and erstwhile father figure.
Obama admitted he could not disown the reverend in as much as he could not disown his own white grandmother who admitted to him her discomfort when confronted with black panhandlers.
Here is a man of tremendous understanding and insight.
Colin Powell and many others call him transformational. Those in the middle of the partisan divide, those able to think for themselves and those who normally would simply Google, text and iPod, their way to the next beer binge on campus, became literally foot soldiers for his cause. A cause he insists is not his but theirs, ours.
The perfect storm
Obama's rise has created the perfect storm for short run unattainable expectations. But his grasp of the gravity of the situation leads him at once to admit that there are "those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices. I need your help. And I will be your president, too."
His acceptance speech, a mere 2,051 words, defies divide while creating inclusion. His clarion call for change and 'Yes we can' were transformed into something big, yet modest.
Obama's road is nothing but rocky. These past 21 months have, despite the erroneous emphasis placed on 'lack of experience', demonstrated that he is entirely up to the task. Walk tall and walk good.
In this photo rendered from video and provided by APTN, the Rev Jesse Jackson reacts after hearing the news that Democratic Senator Barack Obama has been elected president of the United States, becoming the first African American elevated to the White House, Tuesday, November 4.
wilbe65@yahoo.com
