Obama Wins! The View From Squidoo Land

Okay, it's done. Barack Obama has been declared the new President of the United States. My congratulations to Obama and his family on his taking the big prize. Months ago, I really thought Hillary Clinton was going to take the Democratic nomination early on and figured Obama as Vice-President. A dream ticket as far as I was concerned, but the Mr Obama proved to be a tougher campaigner than I had thought.

McCain didn't have a chance in my eyes, but he did get a bump from choosing Sarah Palin as his running mate (Palin in 2012?) but then the Obama-Biden ticket pulled ahead again and from what I can see, is about 7% ahead of the McCain-Palin combo.

There will be a lot of talk about Barack Obama being the "first african-american president" and a bunch of people will be overjoyed with that, but to me that is entirely irrelevent. I believe the best man won. Period. I know it is important to show people of color succeeding and in positions of power, but it is more important to see competence in leaders and we should not be dwelling on what shade of the spectrum they are.

I remember once watching the old TV show "Homicide: Life on the Street" and they had one scene with 4 actors a detective, a police lieutenant, the chief of police, and a city politician, all having a meeting. All happened to be black. I watched the show and didn't think "Wow, four black guys in positions of power!" I thought great scene and great writing. It wasn't until later when I read something about 4 black actors portraying people in positions of power and "Wasn't that great?" I thought that wasn't the point. What I saw was 4 great characters in a great scene on a great show.

But getting back to Obama.

I am pleased that this guy is going to be the new president and wish him much success. We need change at this time and he heralds a new era. Hopefully when the realities of political life rears it's ugly head, he will be up for the job. I think he will be.