How & why B.O. won

As far as I’m concerned, it seemed a foregone conclusion that Barack Obama would become the 44th President of the United States.

As early as his engagement in the primaries with the formidable Hillary Clinton, it appeared eminently possible that the unlikely candidate would catapult his underdog image to an overwhelmingly acceptable representation of a quixotic venture towards the making of history.  

But it wasn’t until I saw a videoclip of Barack O. making a left-handed three-point shot in a gym he visited, as part of what was already a full-blown presidential campaign, that I became convinced he had what it takes.

Of course he indulged in hoops while schooling in Honolulu. Soon we should be receiving an Internet posting of yet another Snopes-worthy claim: that he picked up that skill after seeing an Ilocano schoolmate’s videotape of a game featuring Alan Caidic.

Yes, Barrack O. hardly left the floor when attempting the shot, and sinking it. That was the premise to an easy equation I needed: like white men, the African-American candidate didn’t have to jump to be a winner.

But now of course we can all say that he did jump, in fact skyrocketed as a world celebrity after proving once again the inevitable triumph of romance. 

Even as we speak, a billion Chinese might still find Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, and LeBron James more familiar of visage and stance. But soon they too should be sporting T-shirts proclaiming The Big O. in Mandarin.

All of Kenya has celebrated in utter giddiness. Indonesia, too, lays early claim to the American President-elect’s youth. The residents of a town in Japan named Obama should be in the forefront of that surge of proprietary affiliation that can only become Obamania.  

All the world loves a winner, it is said, especially when the victory is carved out against long odds. But we all saw it coming, didn’t we?

It wasn’t so much Barack Obama Jr.’s destiny as the destiny of a great nation, the destiny of black people, the destiny of a planet that welcomes the advent of great change, or even just the heady promise of it. 

It was all in the cards, one might say. That the Republicans had ruled for eight long years with a president who proved only unwittingly funny with language, and will now leave office with two unwinnable wars left hanging; that the Grand Old Party just had to select as replacement a grand old man who had gone along with their standard-bearer for the most part, despite his so-called “maverick” rep; that this presidential candidate chose as running-mate an unwittingly funny lady from Alaska who only managed to spike up the poll results for a week (apart from sales of eyeglasses manufactured by a small company in Tokyo) — all these pointed the way to inevitable comeuppance.

That a financial meltdown occurred just as the surveys spelled a toss-up is now seen as the final straw that marked the tipping point.

All these were the hallmarks of an imminent turn of destiny as could only be enshrined in the prescient walls of the Hall of (Poetic) Justice.     

On the other hand, the grassroots provenance of Obama’s hopeful campaign, his fateful stake-out of a field of dreams in Iowa, the improbable launch of what would turn out to be a spirited and well-organized campaign that would attract the youth, minorities, liberals and romantics enough to obviate the race question — these all added up and ushered in the evolution of hope from the unimaginable to the possible to the unstoppable.

Why did hundreds of thousands of Germans gather to root for Obama? Why did the rest of the world toss its hopes his way, if not for the mandate of universal destiny? 

Sure, he said all the right things, made all the right promises, focused intelligently and passionately on hopes and dreams and the inevitability of change, as against the age-old barriers created by bigotry and fear. And he did so with inspirational eloquence — just what America needed, and which everyone else around the world knew it needed.  

Hollywood and California went for Obama. Globalized and avant-garde showbiz celebrities, rock musicians, rappers, artists and writers lent their support whole-scale. The “blue states” that represented the more forward-looking coastal communities — as against the locked-in Bible belt and (on the extreme) white-supremacist “red states” — showed the way for hope.

It was a matter of time before previously conservative quarters also began to see those imminent rays of sunshine.

Arnold Schwarzenegger may now rib the President-elect for his ribs that are said to need more fleshing-up, perhaps more muscle — but it was the lean, lithe figure of a class act that lent credence to a vision of elegance, and validated the tag of being “the Fred Astaire of politics.”

Barack balled and danced. He vowed a greener continent. He took Ohio, another heartland, not only because its favorite son, LBJ or LeBron James, donated $20,000 to the campaign coffers or staged a benefit rock-and-rap concert with his pal Jay-Z. It was all in the music of the spheres — of destiny.

Now the hope for healing and for real change begins. Now the assurance is echoed — that being the 44th American leader is no portent of demise (as, say, by an assassin’s hand).

Heaven help the Secret Service, say numerologists via the Internet. In Japan, No. 4 is pronounced “shi” — the same way as “shi” meaning “death.” There are no building floors in Japan with the number 4, as there aren’t any building floors in the States marked No. 13. In Chinese numerology, two pointed numbers — 44 — could mean “double-death.” But the Western heaven already helps, counter the optimists, for inasmuch as the sign of the beast is 666, the sign of the angel is 444.

Hmm. From music to mysticism, from joyful tears streaming down the cheeks of Jesse Jackson and Oprah Winfrey to the jigs of jubilation from Africa to Australia, already this man is touching us all, perhaps even in the head apart from the heart.

His words are a welcome salve: “Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it’s only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.” 

Naaah, he can’t be the anti-Christ.

And as prescient as they come, writer Benjamin “Boying” Pimentel from California has just authored a book that relates us to “the most powerful man in the world” by 2009. 

Pareng Barack: Filipinos in Obama’s America will be launched by Anvil Publishing at 6 p.m. on Nov. 26 at the National Book Store’s Bestsellers section at the top floor of Robinson’s Galeria.

We haven’t been privy yet to its contents, but we commend it for its early-bird bid to join, or help usher in, all the literature that will surround a black man’s feat of history. Come to think of it, that launch happens on Thanksgiving weekend. There is much to be thankful for these days. There is that beam of hope for change all around the world.