Change. Hope.
There you go, then. Barack Obama has been named President-Elect of the United States of America. Of course we over here are removed from the whole thing, but there’s no escaping the significance of a change in the leadership of the States for the rest of the world. Just look around you at all the ways America influences life here.
There’s a definite sense of hope pervading the blogs and tweets today, with the occasional flash of cynicism recalling the rapid tarnishing of New Labour. It’s easy to be cynical, isn’t it? We tend not to admit to hope — it makes us feel naive — yet hope is also the riskier attitude, leaving us vulnerable to disappointment.
I think I’m happy that Obama is on his way in. For balance I’ll mention that John McCain has generally struck me as good spud (an assessment reinforced by the graciousness of his concession speech this morning), although elements of his campaign and campaign team certainly gave me pause.
Barack Obama seems to bring the inspirational back to politics. At some point over the last decades we became very suspicious of politicians and rhetoric, but I hope the new President-Elect can overcome that suspicion. I actually think he might be able to.
November 5th, 2008 at 10:03 pm
Listened to the speech myself this morning and my first thought was the same a you, seems like a nice chap. Wonder though if he isn’t just a little bit relieved. Its a big bad messy economy out there, Certainly a whole lot worse than when he signed up for the gig. Maybe he’s sitting back tonight saying a little thank you that he’s not the one having to try and sort this mess out.
January 20th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
[...] November seems a long time ago, and since then there have been some mutterings, although how fair it is to criticize the man for his handling of a job that he hasn’t started yet, I don’t know. [...]
January 21st, 2009 at 7:07 am
[...] thought carefully about that title. It’s not hyperbole. As I wrote after the election last November, the leadership of the USA has influence around the globe, especially in Western Europe. So, yeah, [...]