Why Barack Obama will disappoint us
I’m watching as Barack Obama has just achieved a historic victory in the U.S. presidential election and I’m thinking, how can this man ever be anything but a disappointment?
As I write this, minutes after the polls have closed in the western-most states, CNN and other networks have declared that Obama is well past the magic 270 electoral college votes, saving us from having to put up any longer with Sarah Palin (on the other hand, what will Saturday Night Live do now?).
The first time I heard Obama speak many months ago, I felt there was something special about his ability to communicate. Not since Martin Luther King Jr. declared “I Have A Dream,” had I heard someone so capable of inspiring not just with his words, but with the way he spoke.
His opponents for the Democratic nomination, and then his Republican opponent John McCain, sound awkward and inarticulate in comparison. When Obama speaks of the need for change, and our ability to change the world, he’s believable.
I’ve not been a particular fan of U.S. foreign policy nor its social policy over the years, especially during the Bush administration, but tonight I’m proud and grateful that it has elected an African-American as its president.
But, how long will the reverie last? How can it possibly last? We’ve set such high expectations for Barack Obama that there’s no way he can meet them. He will do his best on the economy, do his best to get out of Iraq and restore some of America’s lost prestige, do his best to improve education and medicare, and to fight poverty, and he will fail.
He’ll fail because we expect him not just to do his best, but to succeed, totally. He may be a good president, even a great president, and it won’t be good enough.
And yet, the realization that a black man CAN grow up to be president of the United States is so exhilarating that, at this moment, writing of failure seems so out of place.
ArmchairMayor.ca 
Barack Obama won’t fail, because he is already doing what must be done in these times — inspiring people not to give up, but to get involved, take responsibility and work together.
Listening to his victory speech last night, it was apparent Americans — at least those who were among the 125,000 standing in front of him in Chicago — feel different with him at the helm. I suspect they have new hope and faith in their government. That will be Barack’s success and greatest achievment, that he can instill in people such emotion.
He knows already the job he faces is difficult and bigger than one man. One could sense that in his subdued presence on the stage. He was already reaching out to Republicans, American citizens, even the world, it seemed to me, with genuine desire to unify them all.
Barack made it clear that the U.S., when it is great (and there are times it is great) is made so by the combined unity and strength of many. The “great change” he talks about will be about more than one man. Barack will prove to be the willing — and extremely able — catalyst for such change.
He has already set the wheels in motion. He won’t fail, because others will do now what they have not done in the past, perhaps what they should have done but didn’t for various reasons. They will take up the cause and make things happen.
Barack seems a natural, genuine leader, the likes of which we have not seen for ages. The U.S. (and the world) is ripe for change on many fronts; people seem to be aching for it. With all that in mind, it seems to me, Barack can’t fail.
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