Obama sweeps to victory as first black President [AP Report]

"WASHINGTON – Barack Obama swept to victory as the nation's first black President Tuesday night in an electoral college landslide that overcame racial barriers as old as America itself.

"Change has come," he told a jubilant hometown Chicago crowd estimated at nearly a quarter-million people.

The son of a black father from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas, the Democratic senator from Illinois sealed his historic triumph by defeating Republican Sen. John McCain in a string of wins in hard-fought battleground states — Ohio, Florida, Iowa and more. He captured Virginia and Indiana, too, the first candidate of his party in 44 years to win either.

Obama's election capped a meteoric rise — from mere state senator to president-elect in four years.

Spontaneous celebrations erupted from Atlanta to New York and Philadelphia as word of Obama's victory spread. A big crowd filled Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House.

In his first speech as victor, to an enormous throng at Grant Park in Chicago, Obama catalogued the challenges ahead. "The greatest of a lifetime," he said, "two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century."

He added, "There are many who won't agree with every decision or policy I make as President, and we know that government can't solve every problem. But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face."

McCain called his former rival to concede defeat — and the end of his own 10-year quest for the White House. "The American people have spoken, and spoken clearly," McCain told disappointed supporters in Arizona.

President Bush added his congratulations from the White House, where his tenure runs out on Jan. 20. "May God bless whoever wins tonight," he had told dinner guests earlier.

Obama, in his speech, invoked the words of Lincoln, recalled Martin Luther King Jr., and seemed to echo John F. Kennedy.

"So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of service and responsibility where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder," he said.

He and his running mate, Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, will take their oaths of office as president and vice president on Jan. 20, 2009. McCain remains in the Senate.

Sarah Palin, McCain's running mate, returns to Alaska as governor after a tumultuous debut on the national stage.

He will move into the Oval Office as leader of a country that is almost certainly in recession, and fighting two long wars, one in Iraq, the other in Afghanistan.

The popular vote was close — 51.7 percent to 47 percent with 84 percent of all U.S. precincts tallied — but not the count in the Electoral College, where it mattered most.

There, Obama's audacious decision to contest McCain in states that hadn't gone Democratic in years paid rich dividends.

Shortly after 2 a.m. the East, The Associated Press count showed Obama with 349 electoral votes, well over the 270 needed for victory. McCain had 144 after winning states that comprised the normal Republican base, including Texas and most of the South.

Interviews with voters suggested that almost six in 10 women were backing Obama nationwide, while men leaned his way by a narrow margin. Just over half of whites supported McCain, giving him a slim advantage in a group that Bush carried overwhelmingly in 2004.

The results of the AP survey were based on a preliminary partial sample of nearly 10,000 voters in Election Day polls and in telephone interviews over the past week for early voters.

Obama has said his first order of presidential business will be to tackle the economy. He has also pledged to withdraw most U.S. combat troops from Iraq within 16 months.

In Washington, the Democratic leaders of Congress celebrated.

"It is not a mandate for a party or ideology but a mandate for change," said Senate Majority leader Harry Reid of Nevada.

Said Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California: "Tonight the American people have called for a new direction. They have called for change in America."

Democrats also acclaimed Senate successes by former Gov. Mark Warner in Virginia, Rep. Tom Udall in New Mexico and Rep. Mark Udall in Colorado. All won seats left open by Republican retirements.

In New Hampshire, former Gov. Jeanne Shaheen defeated Republican Sen. John Sununu in a rematch of their 2002 race, and Sen. Elizabeth Dole fell to Democrat Kay Hagan in North Carolina.

Biden won a new term in Delaware, a seat he will resign before he is sworn in as vice president.
The Senate's Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, survived a scare in Kentucky, and in Georgia Sen. Saxby Chambliss hoped to avoid a December runoff.

The Democrats piled up gains in the House, as well.

They defeated seven Republican incumbents, including 22-year veteran Chris Shays in Connecticut, and picked up nine more seats where GOP lawmakers had retired.

At least three Democrats lost their seats, including Florida Rep. Tim Mahoney, turned out of office after admitting to two extramarital affairs while serving his first term in Florida. In Louisiana, Democratic Rep. Don Cazayoux lost the seat he had won in a special election six months ago.

The resurgent Democrats also elected a governor in one of the nation's traditional bellwether states when Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon won his race.

An estimated 187 million voters were registered, and in an indication of interest in the battle for the White House, 40 million or so had already voted as Election Day dawned.

Obama sought election as one of the youngest presidents, and one of the least experienced in national political affairs.

That wasn't what set the Illinois senator apart, though — neither from his rivals nor from the other men who had served as president since the nation's founding more than two centuries ago. A black man, he confronted a previously unbreakable barrier as he campaigned on twin themes of change and hope in uncertain times.

McCain, a prisoner of war during Vietnam, a generation older than his rival at 72, was making his second try for the White House, following his defeat in the battle for the GOP nomination in 2000.

A conservative, he stressed his maverick's streak. And although a Republican, he did what he could to separate himself from an unpopular president.

For the most part, the two presidential candidates and their running mates, Biden and Republican Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, spent weeks campaigning in states that went for Bush four years ago.

McCain and Obama each won contested nominations — the Democrat outdistancing former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton — and promptly set out to claim the mantle of change."

I have a dream

Am I dreaming or what? Mr Barack Obama won the US Presidency in very convincing numbers.

November 4 is a race of sorts. In [Melbourne] Australia, as all first Tuesdays of every, November 4 is the Melbourne Cup. A horse race that defines the psyche of every Australian punter, a nation literally stops for this race.

Fortunately for the average punter, Viewed, a 40 to 1 odd winner has paid handsomely for its backers. The result was photo finish for the second horse, Bauer, as well; one of the closest results in memory.

While in the US Presidential elections, Mr Barack Obama was ahead in the polls to take the election. The historic result for Mr Obama is a test of perseverance against all odds. As former Premier Minister Bob Carr wrote not too long ago, this election is more racial and financial than anything else (see a differing opinion here.)

Now that Obama is elected as the first African-American President, the real hard work begins. All the rhetoric must be backed up by concrete actions to solve the financial problems as well as the political ones that the previous White House occupant has helped to create.

Hopefully the experience of Mr John McCain during the Vietnam War will never happen to the young men and women who is serving their country now in Iraq and in other parts of the world.

The day for dreaming is past and gone, change is now the watchword and Mr Obama and his team is now on notice.

Numbed with Obama vs McCain

Introduction:

I have been bombarded with McCain "positive" postings and anti-Obama postings in a particular Yahoo group email discussions. I guess the guy is so passionate with his choice of John McCain as his candidate for the US Presidency - to each his own. Hence this email reply:

Thanks Kuyang Willy for pointing this out (an article in Yahoo - click here). I did missed it since am numb with McCain vs Obama issues.

I guess we have our own in built biases as human beings. In the end, we tend to believe what we wanted to believe regardless of the facts at hand. All we can do is diligently do our research and vote for the ones we like. As long as we participate in the process, that is all what counts. If we don't participate at all, we better close our mouth and suffer whatever the consequences.

As a way of sharing, I've been reading a very good (to my own bias mind!) this article by a former Australian Premier, Bob Carr. Here are the excerpts:

Title: This race is far from over (The Sun-Herald, pp 14-15 issue 26 Oct 2008)

"We've been educated in the Bradley (the black Tom Bradley, who was defeated in 1982 for governor of California, he was 15 point ahead in the LA Times poll!) effect -- namely, that a percentage of white voters will tell pollsters they intend to vote for a black candidate but in the privacy of the voting booths do the opposite."

"The brutal truth is that Obama's was not the ideal biography for someone seeking to vault over three centuries of race prejudice. There's the Arabic name: Barack Hussein Obama. And the stubborn ignorance that has Americans insisting he is a Muslim. There are the 20 years spent in the congregation of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Above all, the absence of executive experience.

"None of the above needs count. Except that whites in the South stopped voting Democrats in 1968 in protest of Lyndon Johnson giving votes to blacks and the Democratic party desegregating. Race was the magic that turned the South Republican for 40 years. Remember too, only 18 per cent of American population have passports (compared with about half Australians) and are fed by a media that reports celebrities above news of the world. Their working class is crushed and demoralised, besotted with gun ownership and old time religion. Colin Powell, war hero and conservative, would have been a better bet to break the habits of prejudice.

"By the middle of the year, polls confirmed the election was becoming a referendum for Obama. Six years into an unpopular war and in the middle of what was then a modest recession, everything suggested the election should be about George Bush, not the Democratic candidate.

"A narrow McCain win was - for realist and pessimists -- more likely, especially as the incumbent party generally catches up in the last week of a campaign.

"Then came September 15. Lehman Brothers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. At 9 am John McCain said in Jacksonville: "The fundamentals of our economy are strong." The ensuing full-blown, epoch-making economic crisis propelled Obama ahead. Economics dominates the election.

"To be fair, it was Obama's coolness under fire that seemed to clinch the deal, especially in the three debates in which he held his own and pressed every advantage.

"Michael Kelly, an Australian who teaches speech communication, describes the Obama voice as smooth, deep, lyrical, with the use of swinging cadence to "entertain the ear", stringing words and phrases together like a jazz musician.

"It was deliberate, Obama knew he had to prove to whites an African-American need not be angry, aggressive, emotional.

"The first Africans arrived in America in 1619. This was a full year before the Mayflower. Yet America has been coming to terms with their presence ever since.

"Its constitution contradicted the Declaration of Independence to accommodate slavery. The country then fought a civil war to end it. For a century the South fenced in black citizens behind Jim Crow laws that enforced segregation. In the 1950's blacks insisted on due process in the constitutional courts. The nation yielded to black pressure for equality.

"In 1968, Martin Luther King jnr was cut down by racists and the "nigger lover" Robert Kennedy followed King to a martyr's grave.

"If an African-American wins the November 4 election there will be no avoiding the symbolism.

"Abraham Lincoln once warned Americans: "We cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves."

"Economic suffering may overtake the last redoubts of race prejudice. And some Americans - in spite of themselves - may do something to make their friends cheer."

Bob Carr, premier of NSW from 1995 to 2005, is a student of American political history.

Also please see and read this news: Aussies jump on Obama bandwagon: survey (click here).

Public Lives - Two speeches that made Barack Obama By Randy David

Philippine Daily Inquirer First Posted 02:37:00 10/18/2008

MANILA , Philippines —No one who has watched Barack Obama’s meteoric rise in American politics in the last four years can fail to be intrigued by what he represents. More than his charismatic presence and eloquence, I think it is Obama’s deep understanding of the major themes of American culture that has given him an intimate connection to the American people. He has grasped these themes well, weaving them methodically into nearly every speech he has made.

Before July 27, 2004, few outside the state of Illinois knew who Barack Obama was. He had been a state senator in Illinois for more than seven years when he decided to run for the US Senate. The Democratic Party chose him to deliver the keynote at the convention that would proclaim John Kerry as the party’s presidential bet against George W. Bush.

That day, all of America took notice — not of Kerry, but of the unknown young man from Illinois . Obama’s speech eclipsed everyone else’s. He spoke about John Kerry and why he should be the next president of the United States . But above all he spoke about himself and how his improbable presence in US politics affirmed the authenticity of the American dream — the dream that in this land of promise, everyone can boldly hope to become what he sets out to be.

“I stand here today, grateful for the diversity of my heritage, aware that my parents’ dreams live on in my two precious daughters. I stand here knowing that my story is part of the larger American story, that I owe a debt to all of those who came before me, and that, in no other country on earth, is my story even possible. Tonight, we gather to affirm the greatness of our nation — not because of the height of our skyscrapers, or the power of our military, or the size of our economy.

“Our pride is based on a very simple premise, summed up in a declaration made over two hundred years ago: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. That they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. That among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’ “That is the true genius of America —a faith in simple dreams, an insistence on small miracles.”

I think the true genius of America lies in its ability to create a social order based on the plurality of races and cultures. Yet race remains an explosive issue. Instead of eliding it as others often do, Obama tackles the issue head-on, almost unmindful of the minefield that surrounds it. He does not ignore the residues of racial prejudice that still divide the American nation, but he chooses to harp on the unity that was meant by the nation’s founders to emerge from the diversity of its people.

“‘E pluribus unum.’ Out of many, one…. There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America — there’s the United States of America .... We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the Stars and Stripes, all of us defending the United States of America …. I’m not talking about blind optimism here…. I’m talking about something more substantial. It’s the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs. The hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores…. The hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too. Hope in the face of difficulty. Hope in the face of uncertainty. The audacity of hope! In the end, that is God’s greatest gift to us, the bedrock of this nation. A belief in things not seen. A belief that there are better days ahead.”

This brings us to the other speech that launched Obama’s political star. Apart from its multiracial character, what Obama knows about America is its religiosity — an astonishing irony in a society that projects itself as a beacon of secular democracy. On June 28, 2006, two years after he won a seat in the US Senate, he was invited to keynote a gathering of religious leaders, a perfect occasion to claim space on an issue that had been the turf of Republicans — religion in the public square. Before joining politics, Obama had been a professor of constitutional law. He was expected to articulate a robust secularism against the rising tide of religious fundamentalism. Instead, he expressed a nuanced view of the vital role of religion in society.

“[S]ecularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square. Frederick Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, William Jennings Bryan, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King — indeed, the majority of great reformers in American history — were not only motivated by faith, but repeatedly used religious language to argue for their cause…. Their summoning of a higher truth helped inspire what had seemed impossible, and move the nation to embrace a common destiny.”

Obama doesn’t leave the issue there however. “Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God’s will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.”

Beside John McCain, who personifies an exhausted empire, the younger Barack Obama symbolizes an American nation that is conscious of its most basic strengths — faith in a time of despair, audacity in a time of uncertainty. . America is lucky to have him as its next president.