Barack Obama, the Senator from Illinois, is the Democratic party's nominee for President of the United States. It took Obama 400 years to wrestle this nomination from Hillary Clinton, and he has 5 days to campaign for the actual office of president, but...wait. There's plenty of time for that sorta talk. Stay with us, listeners. The Monocle had been watching the Obama YouTube channel, and it feels a little bit strange.
The Monocle grew up with hope - we spent our childhoods parading round in vegan booties on behalf of, I dunno, like Peace and Fluffy Bunnies and shit. Our parents drew special little protest signs for our tiny hands to hold. Unlike their American counterparts, that generation didn't really, as Winona says in (this generation's Anna Karenina) Reality Bites, sell their dreams for a pair of running shoes. Nah, in Europe they just sort of...moved to Wales.
When the Monocle arrived in America George Bush was about to be re-elected, and no-one really cared. Oh sure, there were a couple of vigils every now and then, but the whole protest movement was confined to the Women's Studies Department of one small section of Washington Square park in New York Citeh. The Monocle gazed around, befuddled. Where was their responsibility? Where was the communication? The Monocle would like to suggest that the movement we didn't see then can be be seen clearly now: that movement is here:
We Europeans haven't thought much of America in the last few years. We suspected they didn't really get things done, not properly, not moving to Wales properly. We never imagined they'd give Obama the nomination. Now, America's got plenty of time to utterly balls this up. Come November we could be lookin' at President Grandpaw McCain. That'd be a'ight. But for today, high on insomnia, we'll buy the Obama Campaign's story, and we'll admit that we've learnt a lesson. We might believe that Barack Obama's narrative is as carefully written as a novel, but it works. It works because people are ready to take it and make it happen. Story ain't just story, not in a place like America. Story is everything. Story makes things happen. Protest is valuable, but it doesn't do this.
Darn! Outfoxed again, you wily campaign strategists!
