Obama makes American history

6/5/08
For all Americans — people who voted for Barack Obama, people who didn’t or won’t, and people who don’t know about him — Tuesday was a historic day. For the first time in our nation’s history, someone other than a white man earned the votes to be a major political party’s nominee for president of the United States.
It was a long journey. For months, Obama, a U.S. senator representing Illinois, battled in caucuses and primaries across the country for the Democratic Party’s nomination against Sen. Hillary Clinton, herself representing historic change. Had she won the most delegates, Clinton would have been the first woman to win a major party’s nomination.
But it was Obama who overcame the odds, along with Clinton’s huge advantages as the campaign got under way. Most party insiders favored the New York senator, and that institutional support was expected to carry her to wins over the rest of what began as an overcrowded field of contenders. But it didn’t happen that way.
In the end, Clinton’s biggest liability may have been her initial support for a choice that seems likely to go down as historically shortsighted — the decision to invade and occupy Iraq, a country that had not attacked and did not threaten America. Obama’s war opposition gave him a credible position on which to challenge Clinton’s judgment, and he used it to the fullest.
But there was more to it than that. The history of this country’s treatment of black people over the past 232 years is particularly ugly. From the moral abomination that was slavery to the generations of second-class treatment in schools, workplaces and the public square since, this country has much for which it needs to answer.
And one winning candidate in one contest, even in the race for the presidency, can’t come close to making up for that. But Obama’s ascendancy again proves that there is much more to this country’s history than oppression and strife. This is a country that, to a great extent, recognizes excellence and allows people to achieve on their own merits. Obama embodies that spirit, and his rise has inspired citizens across the country.
American voters still have a decision to make, and Obama’s general election opponent, Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, is offering his own vision for the future.
What is certain, though, is that America has made strides that many never thought possible. Obama’s primary victory, and Clinton’s spirited race to the finish, are cause to celebrate what makes this nation great.