The Red and Black

Issue date: 11/12/08 Section: Opinions

MARC McAFEE

Now that election history has been made, all you liberal Barack Obama nuts must find a new focus for your lives.

As you wallpaper your rooms with the worshipful front pages of all the major newspapers, many of you still are searching for answers:

Can I still talk endlessly about "the change we need?"

Will the Daily Show be as funny with Bush out of office?

Do I now have to take my "I voted" sticker off my Obama shirt?

All are good questions for you campus liberals, but I think there are deeper points to ponder next time you're waiting for your Prius to charge.

You should think about how you're going to convince conservatives to support your president-elect, respectfully, after you spent years lampooning President Bush.

You'll have to find a way to sound less hypocritical when you smirk, "Get over it and move on - your guy lost," knowing there would have been riots in the streets had Obama not won.

You'll have to convince yourselves the talking heads are right when they say the Republican Party is in trouble, knowing they said the same thing about the Democrats in 2004.

You self-righteous liberals will waste no time telling us the South was racist in its support of McCain, all the while ignoring the fact that 98 percent of black voters went with the candidate that matched their skin color.

But you will need a bit more creativity to convince people that this election was a mandate.

After all, the country chose the younger, more charismatic and inspirational candidate only by a thin 53 percent of the votes.

That's right - the boring old white man was winning until the economic crisis turned the polls around.

Looking ahead, as your "Yes We Can" shirt starts tearing from excessive wear, we will watch what this historic new president - the great talker - actually does in office.

We will see if one of the most liberal men in the Senate, now required to do something, suddenly can appeal to all the moderates who elected him.

Remember, all of you doe-eyed hopefuls, that Presidents Carter and Clinton came into office with Democratic majorities as well, then lost them after a bumbling first year or two.

But Obama is different? True, he is different because he promised us more than most candidates.

He promised our whole troubled world an ice cream sundae with a lot more toppings than he possibly can deliver.

He had the audacity to promise hope, and hope is a serious campaign promise.

And if he can't deliver?

What if his flowery message backfires as bad as this year's Alabama blackout?

Any married couple will tell you the honeymoon can last only so long.

Soon, the networks will run out of fluffy comfort stories detailing who was inspired where by the election of our new president.

Then what?

Then, and only then, we will see what Barack Obama can do.

We will see if the Kool-Aid drinkers were right about the second coming of Christ.

We will see if this man who came out of nowhere four years ago can actually run our country well.

I wrote last January that it would take more than an overdose of charisma and a nice smile to get to the White House, and I was right.

It took a lot more.

President-elect Obama had to overcome a lifetime of adversity to place the hopes and dreams of an entire nation on his back.

Abraham Lincoln said: "Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."

You liberals now have the power.

Let's see what you can do with it before you have to answer to the rest of us in the 2010 elections.


-Marc McAfee is a senior from Kennesaw majoring in broadcast news.

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