A tsunami for change
Thursday, November 6, 2008 1:18 AM PST
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Barack Obama’s historic and symbolic Election Day victory took on a sharper focus Wednesday. It was an electoral tsunami compared to the last two presidential elections. Obama’s campaign rearranged the political landscape, turning heretofore reliable red states blue and forging a broad, new coalition of voters.
As of this writing, Obama had won 349 electoral votes, and that number could grow with late returns from North Carolina, Georgia and Missouri. He won in Virginia, the heart of the old Confederacy, and in the once safe Republican states of Indiana, Colorado, New Mexico and Florida.
Obama won more than 52 percent of the popular vote — the largest for a Democrat since Lyndon B. Johnson’s election in 1964. He did it with an unprecedented campaign to bring new voters to the process. About one in seven of Obama’s votes were cast by people participating in a presidential election for the first time. He did it by improving Democratic margins among Catholics and white voters in the suburbs, according to a Baltimore Sun analysis.
Race was not the handicap some observers thought it might prove to be. Obama won easily in Iowa, where 95 percent of the voters are white. He won as much of the white vote as the last three Democratic candidates. By some estimates, Obama may have won more of the white vote than the last Democratic candidate, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.
The symbolism of Obama’s victory is powerful and worldwide. Reaction to it from abroad has been almost entirely positive, with foreign leaders and citizens alike declaring a new admiration for America. Clearly, Obama will start his administration on a high note internationally.
Obama also will have sizeable majorities to work with in both the House and Senate. The same economic anxiety that helped him win a clear victory Tuesday helped his fellow Democrats improve their numbers on Capitol Hill. Obama will need all the congressional assistance he can muster — from Democrats, Republicans and Independents — to navigate the months and years ahead. The nation is at war. The economy has turned sharply downward. Obama faces multiple challenges from day one.
Obama’s first challenge may be to manage the soaring expectations created during his historic campaign. He seemed to embrace that task Tuesday night, during his and his supporters’ moment of triumph in Chicago’s Grant Park. “The road ahead will be long,” Obama cautioned. “Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even one term. But America, I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there.”
1209 wrote on Nov 6, 2008 2:03 AM:
No Nickname wrote on Nov 6, 2008 8:26 AM:
Congratulations, President-elect Obama and Vice President-elect Biden! "
Rural Citizen wrote on Nov 6, 2008 10:30 AM:
educateyourself wrote on Nov 6, 2008 11:19 AM:
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