Change and the 2008 American Presidential Election

Abstract

The political landscape of the United States of America experienced a momentous historical shift on November 4, 2008 when American citizens elected their first black leader to the land’s highest office. This was no small feat for a country whose racial history is tarnished by the practice of slavery. Though President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation abolished slavery in 1865, blacks have long lagged behind whites in virtually every socio-economic category. Despite this, a mere 133 years after the ratification of the 13th Amendment, Barack Obama, an American of African (Kenyan) and Caucasian descent, was elected the 44th President of the United States of America. Though many reasons account for Obama’s unprecedented win in November, one common thread ties each together: the spirit of change. This essay will analyze how this one simple word, read on millions of political placards and exhausted by cable news networks, was not merely a political catchphrase to excite a hungry political base. In fact, the real “change” that facilitated Obama’s election was in electoral demographics and voter turnout, among generational divides, in international geo-political paradigms, and in the nature of the winning candidate himself. Taken together, these factors demonstrate that “change” was not only an appropriate message to galvanize support, but more importantly the key mechanism that allowed Obama and the Democratic Party to triumph over the Republican nominee, Senator John McCain