2 Comments on What Have You Learned From the Election?

Darrell Holmes on Wed, 5th Nov 2008 1:31 pm


I think one step that needs to be made is for the continued divisiveness to stop. I’m at a carwash right now listening to Fox News and they are cleverly dotting the line on their biased comments. “Barack may be a great president…he may be a bad one, but it’s great to see someone has been able to break the color line in my lifetime.” “Barack doesn’t really follow party lines when it comes to his policies. It’s really all about him!”

I even heard that Limbaugh is saying over 52M people didn’t vote for Obama and they’re not going down without a fight.

Weren’t we all saying, “It’s unpatriotic to not support the office of the president”? Hmm.

3-D on Thu, 6th Nov 2008 10:40 am


“Barack Obama will be the 44th President of the United States.”

When I heard those words from ABC’s Charlie Gibson at 10 p.m. after Obama won the state of California, I had tears in my eyes. I fell to the floor and was looking at the ceiling trying to process the emotions.After a minute, I leaped back on my feet and started jumping around as if I had won the gold medal. It’s not that Barack just won, but America has won.

I called my mom and she was very excited to see this day come. My mom thought the day Vanessa Williams became Miss America was a giant step for African-Americans. She now believes Barack’s win is the greatest moment she has seen for African-Americans. And what’s funny is how we both reacted to the arrival of the new First Family when Barack was getting ready to give his victory speech. I was saying that they looked like a new millenium Cosby Show/Huxtable Family. And when Barack was introducing his wife as First Lady, my mom went the “YOU GO MICHELLE!” route.

As I soak up this moment, here’s what I learned from the whole process:

Some voters do not properly prepare for the elections or political parties do not properly tell people how the process works.
You can tell people to go out and vote, but do they know where to start. Many organizations have registration drives, but do they tell people what to do after they register. Some people didn’t realize that they had to vote in their precinct on Election Day. Or they were informed that they had to go to one precinct, but found that they needed to go to another precinct to vote. That’s because people didn’t have their voter registration card with them. A couple of my part-timers thought bringing your license without registering was good enough. You can use your drivers license to vote, but only if you actually registered in time for this election cycle. Voter cards tell you what your precinct number is (so you can call or look up the precinct location). Plus, you don’t have to worry about officials looking up and validating your registration if you bring your card. I believe there needs to be more education on the voting process.

Barack Obama has set the bar for political campaigning and fund raising for future candidates.
How does an unknown first-time senator get to the highest offfice in the country? He took his grass roots and community organizing approach and got millions of new voter’s from almost all walks of life. He did it through methods not standard in political campaigns. Text messaging, internet, millions of dollars raised outside of public funding, 30-minute infomercial, an ad in Grand Theft Auto IV video game. Both parties will look into doing this in the future, especially the Republicans.

The Republican Party is really out of touch with Americans as a whole.
Barack Obama’s campaign was used to reach out to all people, particualry the young and middle class. McCain failed to do that eventhough he got Sarah Palin as his running mate and using Joe the Plumber as a symbol of the “typical” American. The Presidential, House and Senate races really showed America that the GOP lost its grip. The Republicans need to regroup and refocus their efforts to attracting young people, African-Americans, Hispanics, lower-class and middle-class people. Palin may be one of the new faces for the party, but they need more than her to get new or independent voters or reclaim Republican supporters in the future. They need to stop being negative and get some strong positive leaders in their party.

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