Newsmaker

In Honor of the Presidential Election Newsmaker, Andrew Wolf has created a cross post on the election and its impact on Cornell and our country.

It was just one of those moments. Time stood still, and everything began anew. Long before midnight, just seconds after the polls closed in California, Barack Hussein Obama was elected president of the United States of America. As I stepped onto College Ave., car horns were honking, strangers were hugging, and fireworks were sent loudly into the sky. Half an hour later standing in one of Collegetown’s many half rate bars, we all crammed around the television as Obama took to the stage and gave a beautiful and beautifully orchestrated victory speech.

President Jerk Face at the Wrong Cornell…the one with more corn…

It was, of course, hardly a victory speech. It was a presidential speech. The Obama campaign would not let anyone into the park with an Obama sign. You were only given an American flag or nothing at all. The stage had no symbols from his campaign but merely a stoic line of Old Glories.

The speech weaved and bobbed through history, touching on our past and our present. It was a reminder that the president-elect will be the head of all 50 states, not just the blue ones. As his words crashed down, and the Motown picked up, the nation sighed a sigh of relief - relief because the election was over. Two years on both sides of rage, race, and ruckus was now a park full of Americans dancing to Stevie Wonder.

It was amazing to me how real and imperfect Obama seemed on that stage. He seems so tangible and human. MLK, Gandhi, Mother Teresa never seemed real to me. They were beyond reality. Obama looks like you should be having dinner with him, not listening to him give eloquent speeches. His persona and his story are so much larger than larger than life, yet his personality is so simple.

Here we are just over two weeks later, and the world has quietly been turned on its head. For most of America we returned to our lives. Washington has erupted into pious power jockeying… no surprise there. So as Obama’s various constituencies line up and demand him to pony up, let’s join to course, Cornell did vote overwhelmingly blue - didn’t we?

Barack Obama as President could have an incredible impact upon colleges such as Cornell. For starters, I believe Obama’s Washington will become a hotbed of activity and jobs. I suspect Cornellians, who dreamed of shaping policy will find far more opportunities than under the Bush administration. Following the election of FDR, Washington became a beehive of college graduates, helping investigate and crunch the numbers on what became the New Deal. With the increase in think tanks, this should only be greater. Furthermore, with the crash of the stock market many economics and finance students might want to turn their dreams from Wall Street to K Street.

Beyond jobs in Washington, Obama wants to increase service opportunities. I bet we will find Teach For America, the Peace Corp, and other new programs well funded.

Obama has pledged to invest in research, and Cornell, undoubtedly, will find its already deep pockets further padded during this process. Bush has been unbelievably good at cutting funding for science. America uniquely teaches its students to be creative, and this has facilitated our dominance of science for years. But over the past few years, our students have had to become far too creative as they attempted to reach for the stars with no money. I believe engineering, space studies, agriculture, and economics in particular will find funding easier to come by.

Most importantly, Obama’s tax plan stands to save students thousands of dollars a year. His tax plan, for the first time in history, will offer up to $4,000 in tax breaks for families sending their children to college. He also hopes to end our disastrous experiment with privatized student loans. Opponents of this plan call it socialism, but it is the current system that most resembles the Soviet Union. Under our current system, the federal government will pay student loan companies back if students default on loans. So the loan company jacks up the price in order to make sure students default on their loans, because they know the government will pay the inflated bill.

Sadly, an Obama presidency will most likely result in less material for comedians. Gone are our days of stopping our homework at 11:00 PM to snuggle up to our John Stewart to get our requisite half an hour of Bush hating. Let us just hope foreign leaders can ante up and cover our humor deficit.

Beyond Cornell, Washington has been shuffling people faster than you could imagine. Rahm Emanuel? Really? the chorus of pundits and insiders cried. Emanuel has been chosen to be Obama’s Chief of Staff. Now this is the most important secretarial position in the country, a position which on the surface sounds boring at best. Emanuel is known as “The Bulldog” and is known to have a vast vocabulary of four letter words. This, many feel, goes against Obama’s image. Now, people… people, people, people… Obama ran for president on a platform of cotton candy and rainbows. Washington is made out of blood and destruction. Emanuel was a signal to Pelosi, Reid, unions, civil rights groups, women’s groups, and anyone else who thinks they elected Obama, that they are not in charge. Any other choice would have been unwise and irresponsible.

We have already seen them lining up at Obama’s door. Pelosi thinks she can move hard left suddenly, and Harry Reid forgot that he needs 60 votes to pass anything and is trying to force Lieberman out of the party. Unions want labor law reform, day one. Women’s groups want greater protections for abortion. Immigrant groups want amnesty. It’s insanity, and if Obama is not careful he will be rendered useless sometime around February 1st.

This does raise an important point. Obama will not be all puppies and rainbows, or even change and YES WE CAN. By the end of January – just 10 days into his term – I bet that most of use will be upset with something he did. Columbia Free Trade Agreement? Sorry unions. Complete National Health Care? Maybe not. Quick withdrawl from Iraq? Maybe next year. For those who could not keep their heads on straight and believed that Obama is the second coming, you will be sorely mistaken… and for that, I am sorry.

It has been wonderful to watch how quickly the world has fallen back in love with us. We are (yet again!) the land of opportunity. I think we should all take pride in the fact that we are the first country to elect a national minority as head of state. Iraq’s government on November 5 told the New York Times that they are excited because Obama will actually respect their withdrawal time table. Since 9/11, we have forgotten the power of peace, we have forgotten the respect and power that comes from silence, and we have forgotten what it means to be a citizen of this world.

This next year will be rocky; it will be exciting; it will frustrate; but most of all it will be different. As we take solace in victory over race, let us not forget Barack’s own warning, “This election is not about me; it’s about you.” Good luck to those who do not react.