Historical significance of elections

In political campaign communication class I learned that elections serves various functions. Among them is legitigimizing leaders to govern. But most importantly, we must realize that election campaigns have symbolic funcions too. They add to our memory of the electoral process and thus give proof that the system is a good one. This in its sense leads to the historical component of the election campaigns. For instance, on November 4th, 2009 the American electoral clock read one year of president Obama's reign in office. On that day, the president gave a brief speech, which could be found on this link; http://my.barackobama.com/page/s/nov4video
The president's speech touched on various issues, including when and where he began his presidential campaign. He also reminded Americans of his campaign them of "change." Furthemore, he acknowledged the role of Political Action Committees, like Organizing for America, which has been instrumental in the campaign for health care reforms. The president did not forget to acknowledge the efforts of Americans who volunteered their time and efforts to campaign for him either.
The video fulfills the historical component of election campaigns, in that it reminds Americans of the election year, the time and energy that they put into the election, and the promises that were made and needs to be fulfilled. This acts as a reinforcement to the electoral process, and therefore, makes Americans to guard there democracy jealously.