Barack Obama's historic win in Iowa leaves us with three powerful and inspirational lessons about America. These are lessons we can take with us beyond the current election cycle, and on which we can build a better political future.
Senator Obama's campaign in Iowa, outdoing the seasoned grassroots operation of John Edwards by eight points, and Hillary Clinton's mighty political machine by nine, centered not only on a message of change, but one of unity. Ever since Obama's breakout speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, in which he called on us to look past "red states" and "blue states," and see a United States of America, Obama has been seeking to inspire a broader sense of national identity.
In essence, Obama's campaign is a repudiation of the Karl Rove school of politics, which calls for a strong showing by the base at the cost of later reconciliation. Tired of all the shouting and polarization, Americans are looking for a president, rather than a partisan cheerleader. They seem to have found him in Barack Obama.
A second lesson we can take from Obama's victory in Iowa, is one that seasoned political insiders could hardly have predicted: that no matter how naïve it sounds, new, young voters will actually show up on election day, if the right candidate asks them to.
Despite the arcane and utterly inconvenient process that is the Iowa Caucus, participation nearly doubled from what had been a historic turnout in 2004. Obama got 44% of support among Republicans who caucused with the Democrats this time around, and 41% of Independents. As expected, Obama did incredibly well among young voters, getting four times as many caucus goers between the ages of 17 and 29 as his closest rival John Edwards. This was no small feat, given that a whopping 22% of caucus goers fell into this age group. Since we are talking about an African American with the unlikely name of Barack Obama, we may collectively tip our hats to the campaign, and to the people of Iowa, who've chosen to buck all expectations.
This brings us to lesson number three: Minority candidates can get white votes. We got a preview of this in 2006, when Rep. Harold Ford, Jr., an African American, was able to muster 40% of the Caucasian vote in the Tennessee race for the Senate. Pundits had predicted then, as they did before Obama's win in Iowa, that poll numbers showing support for the black candidate could not be reliable, given that whites might say one thing to a pollster, but act on their prejudices come voting time. Like Harold Ford, Jr., Barack Obama proved skeptics wrong in Iowa, a state that is 95% white.
One of the keys to Obama's victory, and Ford's strong showing in 2006, is that both men sought to transcend race, rather than be defined by it. While not shying away from the challenges of color, Obama refused to be a "minority" candidate in the superficial sense of the word. Being a politician of color no longer has to mean being defined by the racism of others, and we can all be proud of this development.
At the end of the day, the three lessons of Obama's win center around a single, underlying premise: that America is better off united. The shouts at the Obama victory rally shifted briefly from "O-ba-ma, O-ba-ma," to a chant we rarely hear at Democratic events: "U-S-A, U-S-A..." America is stronger when it joins hands, not out of fear or blind nationalism, but out of a deep sense of optimism. For this lesson, we can thank the people of Iowa.