Three more great articles from The Economist on this past Tuesday’s election excerpted below. The first article deals with the expectations that President-elect Barack Obama will face once he takes the Oath of Office on January 20th.

Great expectations of Barack Obama | The Economist
Nov 6th 2008, From The Economist print edition

Barack Obama has won a famous victory. Now he must use it wisely

NO ONE should doubt the magnitude of what Barack Obama achieved this week. When the president-elect was born, in 1961, many states, and not just in the South, had laws on their books that enforced segregation, banned mixed-race unions like that of his parents and restricted voting rights. This week America can claim more credibly than any other western country to have at last become politically colour-blind. Other milestones along the road to civil rights have been passed amid bitterness and bloodshed. This one was marked by joy, white as well as black.

The second article examines how Mr. Obama won the election, where he won his support and how he held off Senator McCain.

How Barack Obama won the presidency | Signed, sealed, delivered | The Economist
Nov 6th 2008 | WASHINGTON, DC, From The Economist print edition

Barack Obama owes his victory to blacks, Hispanics, the young, women of all races, the poor and the very rich

IT WAS a suitably exhilarating end to the most thrilling presidential race in a generation. This was the longest election in American history, and the most expensive by far. It was also, on the Democratic side, the hardest-fought, with Hillary Clinton amassing almost as many primary votes as Barack Obama. But on November 4th the result was clear: Mr Obama beat John McCain by six points in the popular vote (52% to 46%) and 190 votes in the electoral college (364 votes to 174).

A sense of history in the making hung over the election: a country that has been torn apart by race peacefully elected a black man to the highest office in the land. Mr Obama’s volunteers wore T-shirts inscribed with the slogan “Making history”. People across the country cheered and wept when the result was announced. Both Mr Obama and Mr McCain gave speeches worthy of a turning point.

The final article discusses the many challenges, especially in foreign policy matters, facing the future President.

The challenges facing Barack Obama | Obama’s world | The Economist

How will a 21st-century president fare in a 19th-century world?

BLISS it is in this dawn to be alive. That will be the reaction of many people around the world to America’s election of a thrilling new president—young, black, with political and intellectual gifts well above the ordinary. But the world that will face Barack Obama when he moves into the White House in January is not very heaven. It is, in fact, a mess.

Just because the election is over does not mean that everything is going to be all wine and roses over the next four years. Stay educated, read the three articles linked above, and keep reading over the next four years.

The challenges facing this nation are not going away anytime soon, if ever. As each challenge is surpassed, another will surely present itself, and we the people need to make sure that we continue to make the correct choices as face each new obstacle.

That is what made the United States a great nation, once upon a time, and that’s what will bring us back to the fore.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Note those first three words in the Preamble to the Constitution, quoted above. “We the People” … we, the people of the United States of America … the people. That’s us. That’s all of us. It’s you, it’s me … it’s Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton; it’s John McCain, and unfortunately, it’s also George W. Bush, who has done his best over the past 7+ years to take America out of the hands of the People, and concentrate it in the hands of the few.

This election cycle is about so much more than race, than the war in Iraq, than the economy. It’s about the people of the United States, people who are desperate for change; people who need change.

And the only way to help ensure change is to participate; to get active … to speak your mind … and to vote.

BILLY BRAGG - THERE IS POWER IN A UNION

There is power in a factory, power in the land
Power in the hands of a worker
But it all amounts to nothing if together we don’t stand
There is power in a Union

Now the lessons of the past were all learned with workers’ blood
The mistakes of the bosses we must pay for
From the cities and the farmlands to trenches full of mud
War has always been the bosses’ way, sir

The Union forever defending our rights
Down with the blackleg, all workers unite
With our brothers and out sisters from many far off lands
There is power in a Union

Now I long for the morning that they realise
Brutality and unjust laws can not defeat us
But who’ll defend the workers who cannot organise
When the bosses send their lackies out to cheat us?

Money speaks for money, the Devil for his own
Who comes to speak for the skin and the bone
What a comfort to the widow, a light to the child
There is power in a Union

The Union forever defending our rights
Down with the blackleg, all workers unite
With our brothers and out sisters from many far off lands
There is power in a Union.