Presenting president number 44
Justin Van Houten
Issue date: 11/7/08 Section: Opinion
The 2008 Presidential election came to a close Tuesday night with Barack Obama officially named president.
Regardless of who you did or didn't vote for, here are a few things I feel we as Iowans and Americans can all agree on and take pride in.
The Iowa caucuses are relevant and deserve to maintain their standing as first-in-the-nation. Skeptics claimed Iowans wouldn't offer a good barometer for how candidates would eventually finish. Iowans proved otherwise.
Look no further than the earliest national polls, which had this election coming down to a face-off between former New York City mayor Rudy Guiliani and Sen. Hillary Clinton.
Iowans thought different, correctly voting for Obama in the Democratic caucus, after he was picked third behind former Sen. John Edwards as well Clinton, propelling him onto the national stage.
As for picking the Republican nominee, let's give ourselves a pass on our choice of former Gov. Mike Huckabee over Sen. John McCain.
McCain's campaign was on financial life-support at the time and Huckabee swept in, taking full advantage of the unique straw poll system used in the Republican caucus.
One not so pleasant by-product of being first-in-the-nation is the avalanche of ads we were continually bombarded with throughout this process.
On the bright side, all the media drawn to Iowa and advertising dollars spent as a result of the caucuses helped to support the state during a tough economic period.
Another thing we can all take pride in and agree upon is the issue of race in this election or should I say non-issue.
As I discussed and listened to others discuss the candidates in the weeks leading up to this election, not once did I hear skin color brought up. The focus was solely on the issues at hand. This is the way it should be.
I realize race is, and may always be, an issue to varying degrees in our society, it's not as if it suddenly disappeared with this election, but as numerous political pundits have noted over the last few days, race turned out to be a footnote in this election from the voter's perspective.
Just to be clear, in no way am I discounting the significance of this election for African-Americans and Americans as a whole.
Make no mistake, the 44th President of the United States of America, Barack Obama, is an African-American. The first to be elected president. There is no telling how positively this will affect the African-American community in the future, as well as all Americans who dare to dream big.
Regardless of our own political affiliations, we as Iowans, should take pride in knowing we did our part and were a catalyst in this historical election which transcended American politics on so many levels.
Regardless of who you did or didn't vote for, here are a few things I feel we as Iowans and Americans can all agree on and take pride in.
The Iowa caucuses are relevant and deserve to maintain their standing as first-in-the-nation. Skeptics claimed Iowans wouldn't offer a good barometer for how candidates would eventually finish. Iowans proved otherwise.
Look no further than the earliest national polls, which had this election coming down to a face-off between former New York City mayor Rudy Guiliani and Sen. Hillary Clinton.
Iowans thought different, correctly voting for Obama in the Democratic caucus, after he was picked third behind former Sen. John Edwards as well Clinton, propelling him onto the national stage.
As for picking the Republican nominee, let's give ourselves a pass on our choice of former Gov. Mike Huckabee over Sen. John McCain.
McCain's campaign was on financial life-support at the time and Huckabee swept in, taking full advantage of the unique straw poll system used in the Republican caucus.
One not so pleasant by-product of being first-in-the-nation is the avalanche of ads we were continually bombarded with throughout this process.
On the bright side, all the media drawn to Iowa and advertising dollars spent as a result of the caucuses helped to support the state during a tough economic period.
Another thing we can all take pride in and agree upon is the issue of race in this election or should I say non-issue.
As I discussed and listened to others discuss the candidates in the weeks leading up to this election, not once did I hear skin color brought up. The focus was solely on the issues at hand. This is the way it should be.
I realize race is, and may always be, an issue to varying degrees in our society, it's not as if it suddenly disappeared with this election, but as numerous political pundits have noted over the last few days, race turned out to be a footnote in this election from the voter's perspective.
Just to be clear, in no way am I discounting the significance of this election for African-Americans and Americans as a whole.
Make no mistake, the 44th President of the United States of America, Barack Obama, is an African-American. The first to be elected president. There is no telling how positively this will affect the African-American community in the future, as well as all Americans who dare to dream big.
Regardless of our own political affiliations, we as Iowans, should take pride in knowing we did our part and were a catalyst in this historical election which transcended American politics on so many levels.
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