The Myth and Math of the Moment
By C. Naseer Ahmad
Washington, DC
“We are made for this moment, and we will seize it,” boldly declared a triumphant and confident President Obama. There was plenty more food for thought in his second inaugural address. One ought not to forget his 2004 speech proclaiming that “there are no red states or blue states, just the United States.”
Let us ponder a bit how this moment on January 21, 2013 became possible. Let us also not forget that the opposing party had some loud bumper stickers marking the day with the “O” in Obama crossed out or portraying the President as a rabid socialist bent upon destroying the growth engine called “USA”.
“We have the math, they have the myth”, said Jim Messina Obama’s campaign manager in 2012. The math was real – with almost a million people gathered to see the myth proven wrong on January 21, 2013. And, you did not have to wait this long. Long before this moment of truth and the debate debacle in Denver, one got the feeling that President Obama will again be retaking his oath “to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States” – so help him God.
While Newt Gingrich was neutering himself, Herman Cain was being a buffoon in front of cameras and other opposing candidates were committing political Hara-Kiri, young Obama volunteers were busy coaching motivated voters almost twice their age. I met one such volunteer on deck a few houses down on Remington Road in Oakton – a fairly conservative neighborhood. The sparkle in the eye of this young volunteer was saying that he was “fired up, ready to go” and one could easily tell who would be taking the oath of the office on January 21, 2013.
Just a few weeks earlier on November 11, 2012 at the Velocity Five Sports Bar in Falls Church, Virginia, about twenty miles west from where Mr. Obama spoke on January 21, 2013, Paul Jameson a leader of the Fairfax County Democrats explained precinct by precinct counts for the Obama, Tim Kaine and Gerry Connolly victory at the polls. Moments later, Delegate Mark Keam electrified the volunteers who turned a right leaning district into a purple state. Delegate Keam is a testament to success of the immigrants and the changing demographics in America. He is a person not to be discounted. After all, he was one of the invitees to the State Dinner at the White House earlier in 2012. Here is one more reason why math matters more than the myth about the immigrants in modern America.
“I am a Democrat now”, said - in Urdu - a humbled former Chairman of Fairfax Republican party at a gathering to celebrate Representative Gerry Connolly’s victory party in downtown Fairfax in early December 2012. Only a few years ago, people remember him thanking President George W. Bush at the Army Navy Club in Fairfax, Virginia for invading Iraq. Not long after that victory party one could meet fellow immigrants gathered at the Tower Club invited by a jubilant Rep Gerry Connolly to thank his donors. It was one of those rarest moments, as politicians rarely hold such events. There one met local business leaders like M. Siddique Sheikh – owners of several businesses and a Pakistani American whose palatial house in Alexandria appears to be the first stop for an American Ambassador representing a Democratic President heading towards Islamabad. There goes the myth that all Pakistani Americans support the opposing party.
And, it was bemusing to note that only a few weeks earlier – in the same Tower Club top floor room - one could tease the popular Republican Governor of Virginia if he would be a Presidential candidate in 2016 and joyfully hear him respond: “I will be working to help reelect President Romney for a second term”. Long live President Mitt.
These wandering thoughts harken another interesting moment in one’s life earlier this summer at a restaurant near Georgetown University when the waiter brought the check for a family dinner. “I just want to let you know that just last week, the President was sitting at this table,” quietly but confidently spoke the waiter with a distinctive Pakistani accent – such that one could easily predict the street of Lahore where he grew up in. Then he went on to tell us that he personally served former President Clinton in the room below not long ago. It will be an act of financial suicide to chase the Presidents of the United States to the places they dine. But, it is reassuring to know that the POTUS dines among the populace.
There was a time when it was a struggle to explain to inquiring minds where Pakistan was on the map or whether if it was a country in the first place. Not anymore. Painful moments – 9/11 and the hapless Faisal Shehzad - in history have relieved the burden of explaining the exact geographical coordinates of the country of birth for many Americans. Nowadays, the death tolls from suicide bombers and drone strikes show the steep climb that many of us have to undertake to repair the damage to seize the moment and seize the day to contribute positively and not to be counted as thankless “takers”.
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