Barack Obama Makes History

BARACK WINS IOWA!





What happened in Iowa was nothing short of historic. It's not a media exaggeration and it's certainly long overdue. Let's really think about what happened. Barack Obama, an African-American, "with a funny sounding name" won against an incumbent that had been anointed a year ago and a political machine that had been pre-ordained years ago. For the first time in my lifetime, my generation spoke and it mattered. Now I'm not too hopeful as to fool myself to think that this means that this is Obama's race to lose. Far from it, in fact. Clinton still has a firm grip on this and has the resolve and the money to hold on to that. But none of that discounts what happened last night. And who knows, maybe hope just can work.

An excerpt from Barack Obama's victory speech last night:

For many months, we've been teased, even derided for talking about hope.
But we always knew that hope is not blind optimism. It's not ignoring the enormity of the task ahead or the roadblocks that stand in our path. It's not sitting on the sidelines or shirking from a fight. Hope is that thing inside us that insists, despite all evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us if we have the courage to reach for it, and to work for it, and to fight for it.
Hope is what I saw in the eyes of the young woman in Cedar Rapids who works the night shift after a full day of college and still can't afford health care for a sister who's ill; a young woman who still believes that this country will give her the chance to live out her dreams.
Hope is what I heard in the voice of the New Hampshire woman who told me that she hasn't been able to breathe since her nephew left for Iraq; who still goes to bed each night praying for his safe return.
Hope is what led a band of colonists to rise up against an empire; what led the greatest of generations to free a continent and heal a nation; what led young women and young men to sit at lunch counters and brave fire hoses and march through Selma and Montgomery for freedom's cause.
Hope—hope—is what led me here today – with a father from Kenya; a mother from Kansas; and a story that could only happen in the United States of America. Hope is the bedrock of this nation; the belief that our destiny will not be written for us, but by us; by all those men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is; who have the courage to remake the world as it should be.

Here is the video of the speech in its entirety.