A belated congratulations to Preident-elect Obama, who ran one of the best campaign operations I have seen.
Obama’s election is obviously noteworthy because he is the first African-American candidate to win. The 2008 campaign stretched out for so long, with Obama the front-runner much of the time, that on one level I had already adjusted to the idea of having an African-American president.
Still, as I watched him speak at Grant Park, I stepped back and tried to view the scene as I would have seen it just ten years ago. And in that light, it’s totally unexpected. I imagined I might see a black president at some point during my lifetime. But given the dearth of black governors and senators at the time, it seemed unlikely that it would be anytime soon.
Looking forward, Obama is inheriting one of the biggest challenges an incoming president has faced since the Vietnam War. On the international front, he faces armed conflict on two fronts and simmering issues with several rogue states. But by far his biggest problem is the tanking world economy (bonddad has a series of graphs illustrating the situation here). This will dominate his first year in office . . . and likely well beyond that.
I hope President Obama is able to run the government as well as he ran his campaign. We’re going to need it.