I must admit from the start to not being a big fan of Senator Obama. For reasons I will discuss in future posts I am quite concerned about his qualifications to be President. I also question whether his motives and personality are truly as noble and pure as some of his supporters allege.
Indeed, just as I wonder about the so called Bush Derangement Syndrome, I also wonder about the Obama Evangalism Syndrome.
However tonight is not the night for me to comment on those issues, there will be plenty of time between now and November for me to offer observations on the Obama campaign. Tonight is the night for me to keep a little intellectual honesty by giving credit where credit is due.
Senator Obama has pulled off one of the most brilliant political coups in modern campaigns. If you go back just 5 years to the summer of 2003, Obama was a relatively obscure state senator from Illinois. Not only did nobody in Iowa or New Hampshire know who he was, I rather suspect that there were a lot of people in Chicago who were not so sure.
Today he is on the verge of being the Democratic candidate for President of The United States and given the current political climate, in about 7 months he is likely to be living in the White House. He has not only won the nomination but has done so over a candidate that virtually everyone considered a certain winner.
To be sure he has been helped in this endeavor by the political climate. Like Jimmy Carter 30 years ago he has been able to enter a jaded political enviroment and connect with voters tired of politics as usual. He has also been aided by a horrible campaign on the part of his opponent. If the Obama effort gets awards for being one of the best, Clinton has earned one for one of the worst.
Indeed many people did discuss the possibility of Clinton fatigue, but the idea that a first time candidate could not only move past Clinton but also all of the other contenders was a bit out of this world.
But even if you take into account the conditions that helped Obama you cannot deny the accomplishment of having the nerve to make the race in the first place and the brilliance of success. One sign of this can be seen in the fact that Obama is tonight speaking from the site of the GOP convention. Clearly this venue had to be booked well in advance, showing either that he and his staff were overly confident or quite prescient.
So my hat is off to you Senator Obama, you have won a race that few people thought possible.