It is with great pleasure to report that Barack Obama has won the Iowa caucuses tonight, setting him up for a great chance to grab the Democratic Nomination for the Presidency in 2008!

It’s hard to put in words how optimistic I am about the possibility of this man becoming our next President and what excites me even more is that now I’m pretty sure America realizes we’ve got a real candidate this time around.

We’re going to see political involvement, especially from the youth and those of us in the hip-hop generation, like we’ve never seen before during the 2008 campaign. Some may argue that we made this same statement in 2004 , yet were still unable to impact the polls enough to sway the election.

Well, 2004 and 2008 are apples and oranges in my book.

In 2004, many of us in the hip-hop community worked to build a strong movement that encouraged voter participation and established a voice of our own in politics. We weren’t dealt a great hand that year. John Kerry wasn’t really a guy that would have seemed right stumping for votes in Harlem with Jim Jones and the Byrdgang or working on the trap vote in Atlanta with Young Jeezy.

The motivation for us wasn’t that we truly wanted Kerry to be President. We just didn’t want George W. to continue being the President. We probably would have campaigned for taking 4 years off and rethinking the whole Presidency concept, had it been on the ballot. Kerry was the next best thing. Seeing as how his last name wasn’t Bush, he met all qualifications required for someone we could vote for.

Not the case this time around. This year we have a candidate that we want to be President.

He gets the vote of the hip-hop generation and don’t be presumptuous in assuming that’s attributable to his skin color. He’s gets the vote of the hip-hop generation because in the short time he’s been in the national spotlight as a politician, he’s kept it real with us. Every jab someone throws at him inadvertently makes him look better and like more of a person we should trust. Mostly, he gets the vote because for many of us, this will be the first time we can cast a vote for someone we like. I’ve only had the opportunity to vote in 2 Presidential elections in my life and needless to say I’m not all that satisfied with the results.

It’s funny that the best criticism tossed towards Obama is that he lacks the experience required for the job of President. You’re telling me it’s supposed to be a bad thing that he hasn’t been sitting in DC for 30 years? He doesn’t have a record of Senate votes that have f***** up our country?

I’m saying the less the experience the better this time around. We want youth. We want a President that we truly believe will posses the savvy mind it’s going to take to clean up all the unfinished business he’s going to inherit. It’s impressive that he even wants the job.

This may sound strange, but his admittance to past drug has made me an even bigger supporter. I’m not condoning the use of drugs (or advocating against…), but the way he handled what I guess is now the customary weed question further proved that he’s not going to feed us bulls***. Not only did he admit to inhaling the weed, he admitted he was a straight up pot head. He tossed out the fact that he’d done some coke too, just in case anyone was curious. I’m pretty sure that from this revelation, none of us became concerned that this guy might appoint Snoop Dogg as Secretary of State if he were to be elected (although I’ve still got my fingers crossed).

As this campaign progresses, the attacks will get worse and once he goes up against GOP financing, he may not even need his own campaign funding if he can continue to avert the mud-slinging. November still seems decades away right now, but what Barack Obama did in Iowa tonight has definitely set 2008 off to a great start and hopefully leaders in the hip-hop community will join the cause earlier and most won’t have a problem putting their name behind a candidate this time around. There’s really only one factor that worries me about Obama getting the hip-hop vote this year…Oprah.