US: the year that was
Updated on 23 December 2008
Felicity Spector looks back on a year in US politics.
There's never been a year quite like it.
From a presidential primary contest that most assumed would deliver two candidates from the heart of the establishment, through a series of knife edge contests and upset results that hardly anyone could have believed, to the triumph of hope, and a man who dared to believe: Yes. We. Did.
There were flashes of humour, too, some almost surreal: after all, this was the election when Paris Hilton made a party-political broadcast and Sarah Palin somehow got picked for the Republican ticket.
When John McCain gave the best performance of the campaign pretending to sell dodgy jewellery on Saturday Night Live, and when the Wall Street Journal ran a purportedly serious piece arguing that Obama was simply too skinny to be Commander-in-Chief.
And when the lasting legacy of George Bush became an enraged Iraqi journalist throwing his shoes at a fast-ducking president on what was supposed to be a farewell tour of Baghdad.
Today when everyone's ogling the latest papped shots of the perfect president-elect, with his perfect pecs, emerging from the surf onto a perfect Hawaii beach, it all seems like the longest twelve months in political memory.
It was a year which saw President Bush sink so low in the popular ratings that he became one of the most unpopular presidents since, well, ratings began.
A war in Iraq which grew ever more detested by the people in whose name it was being fought and by the nation which waged it in the name of democracy.
An economy which once seemed invincible was brought to its knees, first by the collapse of confidence, then the collapse of the banks, then the collapse of the very edifices of capitalism themselves.
A conservative Republican administration found itself nationalising the commanding heights of the economy: pledging taxpayers' money to prop up financial institutions and save some of America's iconic manufacturing companies from going to the wall.
When Paris Hilton made a party-political broadcast and Sarah Palin somehow got picked for the Republican ticket
But above all, of course, this was the year of one man. One man destined to make history on one night in November, when from the furthest fringes of Maine to the redneck heartland of Virginia, to the deserts of Nevada, the map of America turned blue.
A night when hundreds of thousands of people turned out onto the streets, sounding horns, waving flags, chanting his name.
His words were messianic: 'If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer", he told adoring crowds in Chicago's Grant Park.
The expectations are huge. The weight on his shoulders, surely unbearable.
Already the kvetching has begun: his cabinet deemed too centrist, too orthodox, too Clintonite. Hillary Clinton herself, secretary of state, too pro-war. The preacher giving his inaugural invocation, too anti-gay.
And yet it seems the entire country is still primed for a massive celebration, in just under four weeks time, when that stage is set for Obama to take the Lincoln bible in his hand and swear the oath of office.
Four million people, or maybe it's more like two million, are expected to flock to that usually most mild-mannered of cities, Washington DC, where bars will actually stay open till five am.
It's a year when politics suddenly got exciting, when millions of people really wanted to get involved, when the word hope actually meant something, and was not simply dismissed by cynics and mocked by opponents, when there was a genuine belief that change really could happen.
So are we on the verge of some kind of historic transformation? Will anything ever be the same again? Or will it all turn out to be politics as usual, after all?
Keep watching, because one thing's for certain, the year of surprises might be over, but the year of President Obama has yet to begin.
