His face alone told voters that he was the true anti-oligarchical, anti-status-quo outsider in the race. If nothing else, it identified him as a candidate who was definitely not related, or married, to a former president. But while not being Mrs. Clinton helped him win the primaries, not being white helped him even more in the national election—and not only among black voters or guilty white liberals.
Why? Because all Americans, white and black, liberal and conservative, are brought up to believe that their country is different, special, the “greatest nation on earth,” a “city on a hill.” We are all taught that our system is just, our laws are fair, our Constitution is something to be proud of. Lately, though, this self-image has taken a battering. We are fighting two wars, neither with remarkable success. We have just experienced a cataclysmic financial crisis. We are about to enter a recession. We are unloved around the world, and we know it. Electing our first black president won’t by itself solve any of these problems, but—to use the pop-psychological language for which Americans are justly famous—it sure makes us feel good about ourselves. That hysteria you saw on television in Chicago was, yes, partly about the return of the Democrats and partly about the passing of George Bush. As the rain-on-the-parade dispensers of sour grapes are already writing, it was absolutely about ideology, too. But it was also about relief: We really are a land of opportunity!
The Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, and the Wall Street Journal all lead with President-elect Barack Obama moving full-speed ahead in putting together his White House team. After Tuesday’s sweeping victory—349 electoral votes to John McCain’s 162, with two states still too close to call—Obama woke up at home in Chicago, had breakfast with his family, and spent most of the day behind closed doors having discussions with Vice President-elect Joe Biden, campaign advisers, and the leaders of his transition team. To no one’s surprise, he offered the key job of White House chief of staff to Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois
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