I remember the first time I heard his name on radio. 'OBAMA', she said, it was an Austrian reporter who went on to emphasize in her strong German accent that the candidate was black. I thought well, that' a joke, he won't last. why would Americans choose somebody like him and called Obama.
Then I saw him on CNN. He was so skinny, with large ears sticking out. I quickly thought, well, this is not worthwhile. But shortly before I switched the channel, he opened his mouth. He said something. I remember listening to him talk about change. I can still feel some tears streaming down my cheek, as I heard him tell the mixed crowds that if they stood with him, together they would change America and they would change the World. Still, I was convinced that despite his touching message, his inspiration and his humbleness, there was no way he was going to last. Yeah, i called it 'the Obama won't last thing'.
Then I heard the same Austrian voice announcing that he had won Iowa. Wondering where that was, I googled it without a 'blink'. And there was his website right in front of my face. I started reading, not what he was saying but what his supporters were talking about. I wanted to know who the supporters were. If I could discern whether they were all black. I went to several US government sites search for the demographic profiles. How many blacks, how many whites, how many latinos and how many asians? How many from each block is he going to need to win. All of a sudden he was my Obama too.
Then there was Super Tuesday. I stayed throughout the night, watching them on CNN tally votes as they came in. From that moment on, I began believing in Obama and the American people. Feeling so strongly about your elections, and finding my emotions rather disturbing, I began asking people around me. Did they know Obama, what did they think about him and did they like him? And suddenly there were two, three, four and hundreds of us who so much wanted him to win. But why did we want him to win? So he could change America. Oh no, honestly we didn't quite care. Did we want him to change the World? Oh no, that we could do ourselves. Did we want him to win because he was that compromise between black and white? Maybe. But above all we wanted him to win because he represented the best in every human being. He embodied every bit of what's good in us, so we thought. So he was not only America's Obama, but also our Obama.
Then there times when the going got tough for him and his supporters - that most of you are. Since we could not donate, how could we help? We went from blog to blog, said one or two words of encouragement, hugged people and spread love. We boycotted drudge, CNN sometimes and politico. We fell in love with Huffingtonpost, and we began living on Dailykos. Yeah these were new things we learned to do, because of Obama.
So tonight is a very special moment for us as well. Although we are not Americans, and we neither own nor belong to any piece of America, we share one thing with most of you. A desire to see and experience a symbol for what's good about mankind. Your America and Our Obama.
may he become your nation's 44th president!