Well...

I'll freely admit to not being overly educated in politics, whether that be within the UK or the rest of the world but over the last 6 months I've became embroiled in the anticipation, anxiousness and potentially life changing events that have surrounded the campaign to become the 44th president.

In my naive and under informed eyes, I've looked upon the race with hope and with an overwhelming feeling that as well as being the obvious Republican v. Democrat and McCain v. Obama competition, I cant get over the sense that it's also become tradition v. ambition and even more simply-put Old v. New debate.

When I was younger I was fortunate to be part of a family with relatives living in New York, to have a girlfriend living in San Francisco and also even more so, to be able to go to Florida several times before my 14th birthday, and I guess it was as a consequence of this that i became subconsciously obsessed with American culture; from film to music to language and to the overwhelming feeling that in America their really were no boundaries to what you could achieve, who you could be and to how you expressed your thoughts and feelings.

But over these past 8 years, as I've made the transition from child to adult and as I've looked on from afar, I couldn't help but feel disappointed; Disappointed, let down and moreover almost disgusted by a group of American citizens who couldn't seem to see past their own noses and they became the antithiesis of the America that instilled so much hope and creativity into my early teens.

For me last night not only once again made me feel proud for America, filled with hope and emotion at 5.30AM this morning that has continued through the day, but it has also for me signalled a change of guard, and not just a change of government in the White House. It seems like politics has finally caught up with the times that our generation has brought to the world; this only emphasised by Obamas' campaign usage of Twitter, Flickr, Myspace, Youtube and Facebook to run alongside his obvious understanding for the change in policy driven by a change to a modernistic and vastly more intelligent/popular viewpoint that the youth (under 50's) can actively relate too.

Two years ago almost to the day I was in New York City and boarded a bus where chance would have it that I sat next to a girl who went to New School in Greenwich. For 4 hours she explained to me her viewpoint on US politics and the George W. era, and that how there had been rumblings that a man named Barack Obama was going to run for power and that in her mind he was about the only man in politics in the US that could save their nation from meltdown and bring it forward, and as a result bring the world forward. And that she thought that he would become the first African-American president. Well now he's there; thank you America, let's hope these next 77 days fly by.

jb x