by Dee Dee

Wow, an African-American candidate for president of the United States. A Black man. We are not imagining this. We are not dreaming this. This is real. Barack Obama is days away from being elected the next president of the United States. What would your great grandparents think about what’s happening today? Could they have even conceived it? My mother died just six years ago and she didn’t think it would ever happen.

This has been the most interesting, informative, and exciting campaign I’ve ever taken notice of.  If I were a junkie, CNN would be my drug of choice. There isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t get my election coverage fix. On one hand, I hunger for all of the information that’s constantly changing on a daily basis; and on the other hand, I’m so sick of it I could scream. It’s intensely draining – just watching the candidates day after day, rally after rally, speech after speech. The political pundits add to the drama going back and forth about what this candidate should do and what that one should do. This has been going on for almost two years, but we love it, don’t we?

I was so upset when I couldn’t find the issue of Ebony magazine with Obama on the cover looking oh-so-cool in dark sunglasses. The night he won the nomination, I stood in my living room with a digital camera taking shots of the TV – it was history in the making. Later during the Democratic convention, I cried during his acceptance speech.

Obama was catapulted into the national spotlight while speaking at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, but that famous speech is not what made him who he is. Long before that night, he was a man of strong principles, integrity, and good character - something that the Republicans are trying to destroy. They say he is a Muslim, he’s unpatriotic, he’s inexperienced. They say he has no foreign policy experience, no executive experience. And they have other weapons in their arsenal: Obama’s associations with Bill Ayers, Tony Rezko, and of course the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Obama has withstood the attacks of the Clintons during the primaries, and is still standing after all that John McCain has unloaded.

McCain is behind in the polls, and in these last days before the election, I’m expecting machine-gun type warfare. I expect “race” to progress from the undercurrent to the front page. This is something America has never faced before – a Black man within inches of the Oval Office, as leader of the most powerful nation in the world. Even one of McCain’s supporters at a recent rally asked, “how can this be?” I’m sure McCain himself is asking, “how can this be?”

If Barack Obama can make it to the White House, every young African-American male and female can have the same aspirations without ever doubting whether it can happen or not. Some people have asked, “why should I vote for Obama, what will he do for me when he’s president?” It’s not what he will do for you…it’s what he’s already done. He has reached a place that no other person of color has. He has made our children’s dream a reality. Now that’s Keepin’ it Really Real. Go Vote!