Sorry Hillary, it's all over.
Shortly after 2:30am this morning, Barack Obama secured the magic 2,118 delegates needed to secure the 2008 Democratic nomination for President of the United States.
Senator Obama's victory, coming only forty-five years after Martin Luther King's “I have a dream” speech, is nothing short of remarkable. Conservatives on both the Atlantic would be woefully wrong to sneer at or belittle his achievement. The success of his campaign to date does not just hint at the the widespread galvanisation of a liberal elite but a yearning amongst black and younger voters for a clean break from the irreversibly-tainted Bush/Clinton brands of 'politics as usual'.
Reading the print and watching the television media over the next few days, it will seem as if Obama has already been inaugurated as President. "President Obama", the broadsheets will assert. "The man who is set become President in November", CNN, the BBC and MSNBC will triumphantly declare. "We've done it", his supporters will crow.
Conservatives must give Obama his moment in the sun - and with that, they must also give his campaign the chance to develop that fatal arrogance that has cursed many a political campaign on both sides of the Atlantic.
As they always say in boxing matches; the very best thing you can do in early rounds is to allow your opponent to over-reach.
To date, Obama's entire campaign has been based around the premise
that he is the Washington DC "outsider" who bring about a poorly-defined
concept called "change" without actually defining how such "change"
will be brought about.
John McCain is never the front-runner and always the underdog. His
entire political career is testament to that, as most recently shown by
his transformation from a cash-strapped, also-ran Presidential primary
candidate a year ago to Republican nominee today.
McCain’s speech tonight (which will be broadly ignored by the media) was masterful. It was McCain at his insouciant – and political - best.
Acknowledging head-on that Obama’s campaign will be based around the ludicrous assertion that his Presidency would be nothing more than a third-term Bush administration, McCain signaled to political insiders that he is not afraid to be his own man.
Not only did he speak of the urgent need for reform of America’s “healthcare, energy, environmental, taxation, public school, transportation, disaster relief, government spending, diplomatic, military and intelligence” priorities, he was also scathing about the Bush administration’s initial management of the war in Iraq and energy policies.
Come November, will McCain’s campaign be successful? I don’t know, it’s too soon to tell. But it certainly can be.
For McCain to achieve victory, he must not only claim to be his own man, but he seen as his own man – and that means successfully shaking off Obama’s “third Bush term” attacks. McCain must not only talk about the change he has already brought about, but convince the American people he has the solutions to the problems they see their country facing today. In this sense, it's round one to Senator Obama.
McCain's speech this evening was a fascinating hint at his strategy for the months ahead, for rarely has he been at his fightin' best since securing the Republican nomination some months ago.
"Both Senator Obama and I promise we will end Washington's stagnant, unproductive partisanship. But one of us has a record of working to do that and one of us doesn't. Americans have seen me put aside partisan and personal interests to move this country forward. They haven't seen Senator Obama do the same. For all his fine words and all his promise, he has never taken the hard but right course of risking his own interests for yours; of standing against the partisan rancor on his side to stand up for our country. He is an impressive man, who makes a great first impression. But he hasn't been willing to make the tough calls; to challenge his party; to risk criticism from his supporters to bring real change to Washington. I have."
Whilst it will be a rocky road, his supporters must be buoyed by a chant that usually belongs to Barack Obama's supporters: "YES WE CAN!".
