Morning:
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No, it is not a done deal. The fat lady has not yet sung. It will be a long night. There is, without question, a way that John McCain can win and believe me, he still might. Watch the numbers in Virginia and Pennsylvania. The raiment might yet be rent in Notting Hill as in Manhattan.
But suppose we do wake up on Wednesday and Barack Obama is indeed the 44th President of the United States: what really will have changed? Recession and the threat of steeply rising unemployment will still be hanging grimly over Christmas; the stock market will still lurch from salivating opportunism to nail-biting hysterics; the property market will be flat on its back and the banking system will still have the shakes. The Taliban will still be moving relentlessly towards Kabul and the Iranians will be busily enriching uranium. We will not suddenly have entered the Land of Cockaigne where ready-roasted fowls fly conveniently to the diner's fork and every roof is tiled with pies. Objectively we are still in for one of history's wowsers of a hard time.
But, guess what, objectivity has nothing to do with it, any more than the market is truly guided by rules about a reasonable price-to-corporate earnings ratio. For reasons that have nothing to do with reason except the way that humans behave and societies tick, an America governed by a President Obama will feel like a state transformed and the paralytic empire will get up off its hands and knees and make an effort to walk tall.
And the rest of the world that has got used to sneering at or hating the bully will have the America of its better nature back again; the one in which idealism has been fired by practical energy. Guantanamo will start to roll up the razor wire and Darth Cheney will go back to shooting ducks or fellow hunters on his way to becoming just a very bad memory.
Why? Because the fact of Obama's presidency combines every kind of unlikelihood, and in the worst of times, especially in the worst of times; beating the odds is exactly what we need to take us round the corner out of the shadows and take our children's hopes with us.
It was unlikely that a first-term African-American Senator with Hussein for a middle name and one barnburner of a speech to his credit could hope for anything except maybe to be on the ticket with the fore-ordained Hillary. It was wildly unlikely that he could ever overcome the ingrained race prejudice beyond bicoastal metropolitan America (and the verdict on that is not quite in). He was, it was said by the sceptics, all talk and no street smarts; all style and no spine. But now, if all those assumptions are indeed confounded, won't licking recession be a cakewalk?
No, it won't. It will take a lot more than Obama's undoubted ability to fold a fearful and angry country back together into a sense of shared destiny. His commitment to inject a little social fairness into the distribution of sacrifice is the necessary but insufficient condition of halting America's skid to the cliff edge.
The fiscal nightmares ahead the incapacity to sustain expectations about social security pensions and Medicare (free health care for the over- 65s) was already abundantly clear before the already monstrous deficit got bigger with the addition of the bailout billions. Oratory, however spellbinding, won't fix that, and Obama's campaign, which steered clear of frightening the folks with a clear, cold recitation of the fiscal peril, gave few indications of how he would perform in governance, rather than on the hustings.
But you can get some sense of the kind of administration he would put together from the people he has already turned to. It can do no harm whatsoever for Obama to be looking for advice from Paul Volcker, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board under Republican and Democratic administrations and, though 81, a byword for keeping his head when all around have misplaced theirs.
Nor can it hurt for him to be listening to Warren Buffett, who transfused capital into the ailing Goldman Sachs in return for taking preferred equity, a model followed in the quasi-nationalisation of banks in Britain and the United States.
In foreign policy he has to beware of going to Clinton default mode and reheating the likes of Madeleine Albright and Anthony Lake. But there's a younger team Denis McDonough and Susan Rice who ought to be the backbone of a foreign policy that will need all its wits about it if the extraction from Iraq and negotiations with Iran are to be handled without making a bloody mess. What the Obama campaign has shown America and the world is the kind of discipline without which things will indeed fall apart and the centre not hold.
But then Edwin Stanton, William Seward and Ulyssses Grant all together would not have pulled the Union through the Civil War.
It took Abraham Lincoln: the force and clarity of his grave intellect, the breadth of his humanity, the ruthlessness of his resolve, his confidence that even in the face of lethal enmity he did indeed speak for all of America all classes, all races. Does Obama have Lincoln's calibre to see a bitterly divided United States through to a safer place? We shall see, but then Lincoln, too, was attacked for inexperience, having no more than one term in the House of Representatives under his belt.
If I know anything at all about history, this I do know: that every so often a politician comes along who somehow, through whatever accident of human-chemical building blocks, is exceptional.
Most often even very gifted politicians don't quite make it: they are too cautious or too thoughtful or too blustering or too shady. This one is a visionary pragmatist. I thought that when I heard the speech that launched him at Chicago four years ago. And it made me and some friends in New York wonder out loud whether the next election, fated to be an immense sea change in America, ought to be his moment.
When I saw him in Des Moines, exactly 10 months ago, turn a room full of steady Iowans into a jumping crowd that was ready to believe in the possibility of another American reinvention, it seemed to me that he had what it takes. And though the skies have darkened and a tempest brews, I still do.
Reader views (14)
Liberal & proud, Nobama will help the USA by raising taxes reinstate the death tax, raise capital gains tax, eliminate the second amendment, giving illegal aliens citizenship, confiscating all weapons, nationalizing our personal retirement accounts, seizing control of banks, and last by not least changing the national anthem and the pledge of allegiance. Stay in London TWIT!
- John (Brit Exp Pat), Phoenix USA
Various responses to the comments so far:
Obama is different. He is better than the (almost) unthinkable alternative. He will not be perfect. Bush has significantly damaged the attitude of the world to the States. Being left wing is to consider other people as being equal and worthy of respect. If you don't know what Obama's plans are, then don't comment - they have been well publicised and are easy to find.
Obama was not born rich. His campaign has more money because he has more supporters - hundreds of thousands of individuals donating less than $100 each - with this approach anyone can be president.
Blair did not live up to expectations (no politician ever has), but we did have 10 good years and people should be more grateful for what they have - which is considerably more than people living in most of the rest of the world.
Simon Schama may well be snivelling, but he is a commentator here, not an objective historian (as if there is any such thing!)
- Liberal And Proud, London, UK
Standard left wing sneering diatribe. "Obama's undoubted ability " What does anyone other than the Chicago heavies know of this man's abilities? Certainly not Schama.
- Cob, Brisbane, Australia
Prof Schama is a typical know it all abrasive and intolerant dolt. His performance (emphasis added) was a insult to the British People and all of higher education. His arrogant rant on Question Time on BBC 1 last week was sickening to watch. To his largely American audience he pronounced how hated American's are around the world but failed to cite the back-up for such nonsense. His love for Obama is also quite sickening. He acted like a love crushed school-boy instead of an Academic. What a pompous arse he is.
- Brad, Alexandria, VA USA
You may well be right Simon, however there are some political pundits saying that an Obama win will lead to American isolationism of the pre-WW2 variety, and in today's uncertain world of ever increasing war and terrorism that might end up with you going cap in hand to McCain to beg his forgiveness. Britain could not punch its way out of the proverbial brown paper bag without US support and you should ever bear this in mind.
- Len, Perth, Australia
I care little about who becomes the next US president but hope MCain wins, if only to see people like Schama wipe the egg from their faces.
- Paul, Rochester, Kent
3 Men who brought down Wall Street:
1. Franklin Raines: was a Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Fannie Mae
Raines left with a 'golden parachute valued at $240 Million in benefits.
2. Tim Howard: Was the Chief Financial Officer of Fannie Mae.
Howard's Golden Parachute was estimated at $20 Million.
3. Jim Johnson: A former executive at Lehman Brothers and who was later forced from his position as Fannie Mae CEO
Johnson's Golden Parachute was estimated at $28 Million.
WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
1. FRANKLIN RAINES? Raines works for the Obama Campaign as Chief Economic Advisor.
2. TIM HOWARD? Howard is also a Chief Economic Advisor to Obama.
3. JIM JOHNSON? Johnson hired as a Senior Obama Finance Advisor and was selected to run Obama's Vice Presidential Search Committee.
And you think the Obama gang will fix things? This bunch bought the election with more cash than Republicans can ever dream of. $4 million dollars for one TV commercial?! The regular working man no longer has a hope of representation.
- Kenny L, Phila. USA
"Walk tall"? While damning the country to eventual financial ruin and social chaos? I somehow doubt it - unless socialism has changed, that is.
Anyway, I'll await the results before I start planning any celebrations or otherwise. I prefer to deal with fact rather than fantasy. If the country does choose to experiment with an already discredited political system, I suppose I'll just have to survive until they tire of having their noses rubbed in it and get rid of champagne socialists like Obama and Pelosi again. But wishful thinking and writing off an entire segment of the population who will also be voting is a bit premature just yet.
- Rogan, Irving
Simon, as a historian I respect you, but please stear clear of political analysis, your article is at best shallow and at worst naive.
- Gloria Hoffmann, Norway
How can this sickening little leftie sycophant call himself a historian? Whatever happened to academic detachment?
He gushes about Obama's oratory, drools about his "idealism" and totally rejects any form of objectivity. But History teaches that there have been many great, vacuous, rabble-rousing orators, who have struck a chord with people when times were hard. But seldom did any good come from it. Usually such appeals to emotion instead of reason just make matters worse - and lead to unemployment, hunger and war.
Obama is just like Blair in 1997 - all spin and negative campaigning, and no discernible policies. And, whatever else America needs now, it is not another Blair.
The only silver lining is that after a good dose of Nu Lab here, the lefties are on the run and wiser counsel can set about repairing the damage.
- Justin, London, UK
This is all very well but it strikes me that in USA presidential elections, the key to success is being very rich/having access to shedloads of cash.
Obama qualifies in this regard. The rest remains to be seen.
- Christine Carter, Halifax UK
I am reminded of somethinhg Stanly Kubrick once wrote about the film he never made..Napolian.Kubrick said....it has everything a good story should have...A towering hero...(Obama) powerful enemies...(bush McCain and Palin)...Armned combat. A tragic love story. (Palin for her so called call from Sarkozy) Lozal and trecherous friends. And plenty of bravery, cruelty and sex.
- Jaberwokie3, switzerland
Didn't G.K. Chesterton say that when people stop believing in God, they don't believe in nothing, they believe in anything? Reading this epistle from Simon the Sneerer brought this to mind.
- Michael Mcgowan, london
In other words, Simon Schama, if we cross our fingers and close our eyes really tight we might wake up one day and find that Obama the President is better than the nightmare alternative. He's not exceptional at all, especially inasmuch as we are this close to the poll and nobody knows what his plans are. But, yes, the alternative. Hmmm. Ok. Cross fingers everyone. It could be worse.
- Jilly, London, England
