Four more years.

US embassy in UK. Election Night

After four years, I was again invited to the US embassy in London to wait for the result of the possible, at that time, re-election of their first black president, Barack Obama.

This time I was incognito, because on the last occasion, when people discovered that I was a Cuban from Cuba, they immediately ran away. At one point, I thought that I had some disease.

Despite the music, canapes and drinks I could feel the tension everywhere. People were quiet and talking nervously, at the TV screens displayed all over the building.

I am sure that for Obama the last four years have been a challenge to kick-start a system that was in bad shape. 

Four more years.

He suffered attacks that look like the work of a Hollywood science fiction script:  he was born in Kenya, is a communist revolutionary, or secretly a convert to Islam.

From the beginning of the election campaign, I, personally, disliked  Mitt Romney’s  declarations about immigration, the right to abortion and the necessity of a stronger America in international policy. For those reasons, I was supporting Obama's possible victory with all my heart.

Almost all night neck to neck.

I think that Romney's main mistake was that he disregarded the growing power of the minorities:  Latins, blacks, young people and women.

Also, few weeks before the elections, he was criticised after the emergence of a secretly taped recording in which he derided 47% of Americans as dependent  on the state.

Although he won the first debate on TV, he was unable to repeat the Denver triumph in the following two contests and was forced to take a step back from campaigning just a week before election day when Storm Sandy hit the US East Coast.

Thank's to Susan and Glenn for the invitation

Meanwhile, President Barack Obama rode a wave of broad support from minorities, women and moderates to win re-election.

At 3:00 am we left the Embassy, with both candidates still neck to neck in the race for the presidency; at 6:00am, I was one of the happiest men on earth after listening to Obama's victory speech on the BBC website.

“While the road has been hard, while the journey has been long … we know in our hearts, for the United States of America, the best is yet to come,” Obama told supporters in Chicago early on Wednesday.

Obama's supporters celebrating