The Red and Black

Issue date: 1/29/08 Section: Opinions

ALEX JOHNSON

A couple of hours after the news networks projected him to win by a landslide in this historic primary, I and the rest of the audience inside the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center echoed Sen. Barack Obama when he said, "Yes we can change. Yes we can heal this nation. Yes we can seize our future."

I had the opportunity to work on the Obama campaign in South Carolina for the three days before Saturday's primary.

In the people who voted for Sen. Obama and the people who worked on his campaign, I saw America, what America can be and what I want America to be.

I see Sen. Obama as the symbol of 21st century America. His stances on the prominent issues of this immensely important election are relatively similar to those of the other Democratic candidates, but his vision and message are inherently different and unique.

He has united a diverse coalition through a fresh kind of politics founded upon shared commonalities among Americans. He embodies our nation's ideals as delineated in the Declaration of Independence and will represent our nation as the leader of the free world.

As he said in his speech, this election is not about young versus old, rich versus poor and especially not black versus white. It's about the past versus the future.

There was one particularly poignant moment Saturday afternoon when I and seven others were setting up and arranging the site in preparation for the victory party later that night.

Our task was to attach PVC pipe to the largest American flag that I'd ever seen to hang it on the wall of the convention center. As we went about this work, I felt an overwhelming surge of patriotism, and as a white Southerner working in South Carolina, deep Southern pride as well.

Here we were, a group consisting of whites and blacks from Georgia, South Carolina, Washington state, Washington, D.C. and Virginia working together as a team of Americans to hang our country's sacred emblem.

The way we hung our country's flag seemed to me a symbol of how we should live in America. Citizens of strikingly different backgrounds, from regions separated by thousands of miles, working together because we share the belief that everything is possible and attainable in this great experiment of a nation.

Through a series of lucky coincidences, I got to meet Sen. Obama and his family, and he was just as inspiring up close as he was on stage.

Just 20 minutes after the major networks projected him as the winner, I was scrambling around with other staffers to make final preparations for the night's event.

As I ran by the room where he and his family were resting, we briefly made eye contact, and he gave me an enthusiastic fist pump. He'll shake hands like every other politician, but it takes a pretty cool future president to give you the fist pound.

His wife, Michelle, is stunning and elegant - as regal as Jackie Kennedy. His sister, Auma, told me, in her Kenyan accent, about how much she loves and admires her younger brother.

Later, at the campaign staff victory party in a Columbia bar, I noticed something truly American.

The room was packed with jubilant supporters from different backgrounds. The stiffer old folks celebrated with the younger supporters. Men and women with skin like mine toasted their glasses with their colleagues of a darker complexion. Those born and reared with a silver spoon shared appetizers with those who grew up in the projects or in rural poverty.

That's the America that I want to live in.

Some people doubt whether Americans of all stripes can come together and find common solutions to create a great future together. However, to doubt that possibility is to doubt America.

Will it be easy? No, absolutely not. But can we do it? This weekend taught me to believe: Yes we can.

- Alex Johnson is a junior from Royston majoring in international affairs and history.

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