Dr. Wunmi Akintide

I have a dream and a premonition I would like to share with my readers as the Year 2006 runs to an end in less than two days time. I am not a political pundit in the strict sense of the word, but I am able to read between lines, and I can safely make some predictions based on probability theory and the unfolding political drama in my home away from home, and a country I am proud to call my own by choice and through naturalization.

I have been wrong a few times and I have been right in many of the predictions I have had cause to make in this column in the past on politics in general in God’s own country, and elsewhere around the world.

I am going to do it again before it becomes the conventional wisdom that the 2008 Presidential Election in America may eventually break the glass ceiling and give us our first American woman President in history. Who ever believed an actor could one day become a President in this country? Who ever believed a professional wrestler could win a gubernatorial race in any state in the Union? Who could ever believe that so many women would be elected Governors in this country before Ella Grasso became the first female Governor of Connecticut or that Arnold Schwazennegger, an Austrian immigrant with an accent, could very easily become the Governor of the most economically buoyant State in the Union? Who could have believed, way back in the early 60s, that any American couple, no matter their pedigree, could, with effortless ease, have produced a President, two Senators and a few congress men and other celebrities all in one family in Boston? Only in America!

The whole world was surprised when President Bush’s first son was elected a President and his second son elected the Governor of the great state of Florida all in the lifetime of their proud parents. In America nothing, I repeat with emphasis, nothing is impossible. Who could have believed that a Black man like Colin Powell could, one day, rise to become a 4 star General and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the greatest nation in the world or that Condoleeza Rice could, one day, become Security Adviser and then Secretary of State of the greatest nation on Earth with a mere stroke of the pen?

America is going to do it again and do it in style as the nation swears in her first female President and her first black Vice President in January 2009? You will remember I told you so, and this article is my configuration of how and why it could possibly happen.

America, the Land of the Brave, has set the pace for other nations to follow in practically all fields of endeavor including the conquest of Space. The American experiment in Democracy, while not perfect, I dare say, still remains the best in this universe if the truth must be told. America, to me, has earned her reputation as the land of the superlatives where no record is too high to break. America has done it all. The first country to put a human being on the Moon, and predictably the first country on Earth to land a robot on Mars.. American alone produces the greatest number of Nobel Peace Winners from year to year. Every sport event in America is adjudged to be of world standard, even where no other country is competing with her. Americans view their country not just as first among equals, but as the undisputed leader of the Free World and a pace setter, without any iota of doubt.

Even though China may hold the ace to the future in the views of many around the world, she still has a long way to go in competing with America by all indices of greatness and military power and scientific break through. America is going to settle for a rainbow coalition of a presidency in 2008 by electing a white female President and the first black Vice President running on the same ticket and winning both the popular vote and the Electoral College abracadabra by a land slide.

I am not naïve to suggest here that Barack Hussein Obama, for all his youthfulness, his popular appeal and charisma, could ever emerge as the leadiing candidate from the Primaries of the great Democratic Party of the United States to which I belong. All Senator Barack could do as eloquently argued by one blogger, is to deprive more viable alternatives to Senator Hillary Clinton of some media attention or some needed campaign contributions, at the beginning of the race. I dare say that the media obsession with Obama, at this point, is due solely to the fact that he is an African American serving in a high national office. It will surely peak and evaporate fairly quickly when the rubber meets the road, believe me..

Meeting the experience threshold is quite different from being ready for the most powerful job in the world. Barack Obama could sound and talk like the dream candidate today, I predict that his popular appeal as a possible top of the ticket would not last. If Obama wants to see a little rain, he has got to anticipate some rainbow or the gathering of the cloud. He has got to be tested and proved. None of that has yet occurred, despite all the hoopla about him in the news media..

He is just what the Yorubas often characterize as “Irawo Osan to mba agba l’eru” It is a mirage that could soon fade and wane, but he would surely dazzle the voters and be a great asset as a powerful running mate in much the same way like Al Gore was to Bill Clinton when they first ran together. “Ojo Barack Obama gbodo su, ko to ro” as the Yorubas say meaning his expected rain has to effectively gather some clouds before it could end up in a downpour of some kind.

Dick Morris, the evil genius of a pundit therefore has a point when he argues that either Hillary or Barack Obama could emerge as the Democratic flag bearer. I want to carry that prediction a step further, by stating that Barack would do well enough in the Primaries and the debates to be considered a strong running mate to Hillary in the 2008 Election. I doubt if he would go beyond that when all is said and done.

The duo would, however, give either John McCain or Rudy Giulianni a run for their money in the general election without any doubt. It is going to be a battle royal, and I guarantee you that the duo would laugh last and laugh best, all things considered.

I am therefore rooting for Hillary and Barack Hussein Obama as the democratic ticket in 2008. Their victory should be considered a third term for the comeback kid, Bill Clinton, the 800 pound Gorilla whose framing of the issues in the campaign would resonate a powerful factor in their victory. Nobody does it better than Bill Clinton who has grown from just being an ex-president to the most colorful and charismatic statesman and politician of his generation and arguably of the whole world. You can take my word for it.

   I rest my case.

Dr. Wunmi Akintide