Editorial

Omega Speaks - Time to live up to lofty expectations

Brandi Schier - Campus Editor

Watching the numbers come in on Nov. 4, I still couldn’t quite believe it.

Despite polls predicting Barack Obama’s victory, I was cynical to the end. I always expect the worst to happen south of our border. Not unlike other people, I’ve been jaded by eight years of watching bad get worse.

Almost a million people gathered in Grant Park in Chicago waving flags, emotional and elated, to hear Obama’s first words as President-elect of the United States.

He didn’t disappoint. As eloquent as ever, he spoke of America’s history and his country’s ability to rejuvenate itself.

I couldn’t help but get swept away with his words, their historical significance and what it must mean to so many people. It definitely made me grin when my TV showed the spontaneous gathering of boisterous students at the White House shouting “Bush Out!” which sent the secret service into a tail spin minutes after the California polls closed.

But let’s hope he can govern as well as he can speak.

The America Obama has inherited isn’t in the best shape. It’s a mess. The federal government is over $10 trillion in debt.

Their nation is wrapped up in two costly, messy and deadly wars that have the power to increase global instability if they are not handled properly. People are losing their homes and their jobs at an alarming rate as the credit crisis continues to affect everyday people. America’s image overseas is, perhaps, at an all-time low.

Bush is like the bad tenant you finally get to kick out. But before he leaves, he’s thrown a huge party and left you to clean up the cigarette butts floating in stale beer and sticky sludge on the floor.

People must realize Obama can’t wave a magic wand and fix these problems. It’s going to take time, probably a lot of it.

Obama campaigned on some big promises: reforming the tax structure to better serve working families, more and better laws protecting consumers, much needed health care and a combat troop withdrawal from Iraq within 16 months. It seems his heart is in the right place.

But let’s not forget about the big business pressures and the military industrial complex of power that still has a huge influence in America and the fact that change costs money, which the U.S. is in short supply of.

Democrats will control the Senate but it will not be filibuster-proof. There are tactics that can be used by those who oppose a bill to delay and kill it.

Obama will be facing some bitter coworkers on the hill. If he can truly bring opposing sides together and help overcome the nasty partisan politics, it will be an amazing accomplishment. Many see his policies as extremely socialist and you don’t have to go back far in history to see Americans are wary of anything on that side of the spectrum.

It’s hard to imagine that any one man can live up to the expectations the world, and those who voted for him, have put on him. True, just by winning he has marked an important and momentous page in history. But there is much more that must be done.

I have trouble putting faith in the hands of anyone who carries the job title of politician, so you will have to excuse my cynicism. But even I must admit, there is something about the guy. If he can turn his words into action, maybe he will turn out to be the solution everyone wants him to be.