Summary
Two years ago, a freshman senator with almost no record but much audacity began an improbable campaign to become president. Today that journey ends with his taking the oath as the 44th President of the United States of America, the first African-American and biracial person to hold the office, and the fifth youngest. Barack Hussein Obama has made history and changed American race relations and attitudes in the process. What he has accomplished may seem difficult, but actually it is the easy part compared to what looms after noon today.
Mr. Obama secured his party's nomination, and then the presidency, by running an extraordinarily focused and disciplined, tech-savvy campaign, marked by a confidence and an almost serene demeanor that inspired both hope and change - even if he rarely articulated what that hope and change meant. His main primary opponent Hillary Rodham Clinton and general election opponent John McCain might have reprised the famous 1984 Wendy's ad, "Where's the beef?," but candidate Walter Mondale tried that to no effect then, and it would have made little difference in 2008. Sen. McCain was doomed after his response to the Sept. 15 financial meltdown looked herky-jerky and then-Sen. Obama looked the calm and cool man he seems to be. Americans saw in that, and in his soaring oratory throughout the campaign, that Mr. Obama's voting record as the most liberal in the entire U.S. Senate, and his extreme inexperience (despite writing two self-aggrandizing books already, he has never held executive position or established a track record), were somehow immaterial. Doubts melted away amid the telegenic charm. An astonishing record $745 million in campaign spending (having baldly gone back on his promise to use public funds, unlike Sen. McCain) also helped win the day, with most of the money coming from fat cats and corporations; the 26 percent of donors who gave $200 or less was about the same as President Bush had in 2004, contrary to the populist spin. Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin's inexperience in foreign affairs was a factor, as was Sen. McCain's de-emphasizing Sen. Obama's inexperience and arguing (somewhat ludicrously, in retrospect, as he muted his maverick reputation) that he and not Sen. Obama was the true candidate of change.See the full content of this document
Extract
President Obama's Journey
Mr. Obama secured 53 percent of the popular vote (just 2 points better than George W. Bush in 2004 and about even with George H.W. Bush in 1988), inspiring a top-bottom coalition of relatively rich and educated white suburbanites and relatively poor and undereducated central-city blacks; his focus on the middle class had lesser impact, and his appeal t...
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