As of today, I consider the election already won.
I know that democratic defeats from the past still haunt many who visit this site, but there are larger forces at work here which make it virtually impossible for Republicans to win.
And those larger forces bring up a couple of points about Barack Obama and what will happen after he is elected.
The larger forces that I am talking about have to do with the serious economic problems which we are facing right now. I don't have to recount them here. There are many, better sources which explain how unprecedented and deep the problem is.
There is a quote about Martin Luther King. It is said that Dr. King did not make the Civil Rights Movement. The Civil Rights Movement made him.
While somewhat different, Barack Obama's candidacy can be seen in a similar light. He is a moderate. This is reflected in his health care plan and his initial approach to the crisis in the financial markets.
But I would say that his natural tendency towards moderation is going to be challenged, not just by progressives like Markos and others who have been involved in rebuilding the Democratic party, but by events themselves.
The economic crisis is going to give him a large Democratic majority to work with in Congress. The initial approach to solving the economic crisis adopted by Congress last week will not work, and that will be obvious by election day.
Given that he is a serious thinker and is serious about solving problems, events will force him to move towards more radical positions.
That process is not unprecedented. Before Lincoln was sworn in for his first term, he was willing to support an amendment to the constitution which guaranteed slavery in states where it already existed. He also supported voluntary deportation of black people to either Africa or Central America (termed at the time "colonisation").
But within three years from the time he was sworn in Lincoln had become, step by step, (as opposed to leaps and bounds), an abolitionist.
Franklin Roosevelt was not a particularly radical leader at the time he was elected in 1933 either. He initially was in favor of balanced budgets. It was the seriousness of the Depression which forced him to deviate from that dogma.
I predict that Obama will be in the same position. His natural tendency is to be moderate. Events will not allow for moderation. We will wind up with universal, single payer health care, massive government programs for infrastructure and massive government intervention in previously "private" sector finance. Either that, or we are going to fall further and faster than anyone imagined.
The point here is that, in my opinion, there has been much focus throughout this campaign on Obama the person, the speaker and the leader. And, without question, he is the right person for the job right now.
But, we should not place too much emphasis on one person and ignore the context within which that person operates. Obama has the potential to be a great leader. Events are going to thrust him into that position, as they have other presidents before him.