| ID | 088601 |
| Title Proper | America Chooses Obama |
| Language | ENG |
| Author | Bragin, M |
| Publication | 2009. |
| Summary / Abstract (Note) | AMERICA HAS MADE its choice. The next U.S. president will be Barack Obama, Dem., a 47-year-old African American first-term senator from Illinois, who won a convincing victory in the final battle for the White House over his rival, John McCain, a Republican senator from Arizona. At midday on January 20, when, in accordance with the U.S. Constitution, the term of the incumbent president expires, Barack Obama will be sworn in as the 44th president of the United States, and his administration's mandate will start.
The choice made by the Americans can easily be called historic. For the first time in the country's history, an Afro-American will occupy the top post in the United States. It has taken America, which gained its independence from the British crown, more than two centuries - going through the Civil War, the abolition of slavery, and decades of racial inequality - to do that. "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,'" Martin Luther King said in his speech, delivered on the steps at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. on August 28, 1963. It took U.S. society 45 years to see King's dream become reality. After all, this is precisely how millions of Afro-Americans, who presently account for more than 12% of the country's population, perceived Obama's victory. "There's not a black America and white America; there's the United States of America," Barack Obama told the Democratic National Convention in the summer of 2004, and he was obviously right. At any rate, that much is clear from the outcome of the vote. And although, according to the numerous public opinion polls, conducted shortly before the November election, there was still a certain amount of wariness on the part of white Americans with regard to their black compatriots, there is ample reason to say that in political terms, America has ceased being black and white. |
| `In' analytical Note | International Affairs (Moscow) Vol. 55, No.1; 2009:p1-12 |
| Journal Source | International Affairs (Moscow) Vol. 55, No.1; 2009:p1-12 |
| Key Words | America Chooses Obama |