Get Herald RSSWhat a long campaign season it has been. It seems so long ago that Democratic candidates were whirling through Rhode Island during the primaries. So long since we met the superdelegates - all 796 of them. So long since Hillary Clinton was the surefire nominee, Mitt Romney was the Republicans' best bet and today's would-be presidents were long-shots. Recall the bitter fight over which state would get to hold its primary first? No, neither do we.
But now, after such a long journey, here we are. We have been delighted to see our nation, and Brown students in particular, so involved in the future. But looking back at our long road to this election, we can't help but also remember the even longer road America has taken to this moment. For all the bloviating in the media, Americans have taken the hardest look at their perception of gender that they've taken in a long time - did Clinton's femininity at times cause her to be treated as weaker than she is? How did Sarah Palin's physical attractiveness affect her initial reception?
We've also begun to really dig into the nation's troubled relationship with race today, thanks in part to Obama's nuanced explanation of his relationship with Jeremiah Wright and John McCain's brave refusal to make it a big campaign issue. Obama's own candidacy has made it even easier for black children to think they, too, could be president one day.
The nation has wondered what its easy acceptance and later rejection of Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber tell us about our uneasy relationship with class. We've had to think critically about Obama's "bitter" comments, too.
Today, we'll go vote. But we're thankful for the important questions that have surfaced through the noise of the last two years.
