Where were you when you heard the news? No, not 9/11 or the assassination of JFK, although those of us who endured those frightening, confusing times remember exactly where we were. When something earth-shattering happens, the shock of the event freezes that instant of recognition and leaves us with a sensory souvenir, a memory of place indelibly fixed in time and space.
Where were you when you heard the news? The “news”, of course, was Barack Obama’s election, specifically the moment when the broadcasters announced that they were calling the race. The fact that this event has invoked that question too often reserved for the most deeply distressing tragedies of our personal and public lives is testament to the enormity of this moment.
I was in my car, following my husband to Boston from an election party in Manchester, New Hampshire. Both of us, in separate locations, worked at the polls all day and decided to drop in on the celebration for Gov. Lynch since we figured, in that night of promise but not certainty, shadowed by the specter of victory snatched away, we could count on at least one happy gathering. Lynch won by a deserved landslide but the earliest Electoral College numbers (Kentucky and Vermont) had John McCain ahead by 8-3. I panicked. My husband, used to my habit of assuming the worst, assured me that we always knew Kentucky would go for McCain and that the night was young.
Of course, as predicted, Obama quickly surged ahead and stayed there but I was not ready to truly believe it until the polls closed on the West Coast and from the car radio came those magic words: “NPR now projects that Barack Obama will be the 44th president of the United States.” I immediately started honking my horn and phoned my husband in his car. “Did you hear?” I screamed into my cell. “Well, I certainly can hear you,” he said, “and I am listening to the radio too, but, yes. Yes!” “Yes!” I shouted, “It really happened! We did it!”
The negativity of John McCain’s campaign felt mostly like sad desperation. Sarah Palin’s tactic, apparently without compunction or hesitation, of perkily rousing her crowds to hateful frenzy — even tolerating shouts of “Kill him!” — was far more troubling than her wardrobe malfunctions or interview gaffes, and became one reason the trajectory of her appeal was so precipitous. They waged the politics of fear and divisiveness, of appealing to our lowest selves: That part of us subject to selfishness and insecurity. In the worst, most ineffectual way they were old school. Obama is something new on the scene, who recognized in his own life story a metaphor of the truth that what makes us different, even unique, is less than what brings us together. He qualified the hope he offered with audacity, which can mean both daring and presumption, but I prefer moxie — “courage combined with inventiveness.”
Obama’s election is historic, not just because the country finally proved itself ready, as Dr. Martin Luther King foresaw, to value the content of character above the color of skin.
We embraced the concepts of hope and change even as we understood that they bring with them vulnerability and risk. In short, we grew up.
“Change” is the easiest promise to make and the easiest to keep, since everything changes all the time. Becoming a “we” isn’t easy, but that is the real change that Obama demanded: He calls for us to look to beyond self, recognize and honor others’ experiences of life in this homeland, and make the choice to share its responsibilities and burdens as well as the opportunities. And, enough of us said yes. That’s what has made his election so exhilarating.
I remember not just where I was on election night when I heard the news but how I felt the next morning when I realized that what had just transpired wasn’t a dream. The dream, in fact, was the eight-year nightmare from which our country had awakened. We had lost our bearings in the dark but now we’ve got our moxie back. The way surely will be filled with dire challenges but what we have reclaimed is our power to lift each other up. And, yes, we can.
— Peaco Todd is a syndicated cartoonist, author and professor who lives in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Her work can be seen at www.peacotoons.com and www.porkbarrelcomix.com.
