AP: ‘Obama in a landslide’

Associated Press photo

President-elect Barack Obama will take office on Jan. 20.

Reports The Associated Press:

Barack Obama swept to victory as the nation’s first black president [tonight] in an electoral college landslide that overcame racial barriers as old as America itself.

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, Virginia and Iowa.

A huge crowd in Grant Park in Obama’s home town of Chicago erupted in jubilation at the news of his victory. Some wept.

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.

Obama and his running mate, Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, will take their oaths of office as president and vice president on Jan. 20, 2009.

As the 44th president, Obama 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, 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.

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.

Fellow Democrats rode his coattails to larger majorities in both houses of Congress. They defeated incumbent Republicans and won open seats by turn.

The 47-year-old Illinois senator was little known just four years ago. A widely praised speech at the Democratic National Convention, delivered when he was merely a candidate for the Senate, changed that.

Overnight he became a sought-after surrogate campaigner, and he had scarcely settled into his Senate seat when he began preparing for his run for the White House.

A survey of voters leaving polling places [today] showed the economy was by far the top Election Day issue. Six in 10 voters said so, and none of the other top issues — energy, Iraq, terrorism and health care — was picked by more than one in 10….

So much for the ‘permanent [Repugnican] majority’

6:30 p.m.

So it’s only 6:30 p.m. California time — California polls close in an hour and a half — and MSNBC is projecting Barack Obama as the winner of 195 electoral votes thus far, with the McCainosaurus trailing at only 76 electoral votes.

I know that lots of states still have yet to be projected, but it looks like Obama by a landslide thus far.

6:35 p.m.

Per MSNBC, 200 Obama, 85 McCain thus far.

I don’t think that I’ll have to stay up late tonight, except for Proposition 8 results.

6:40 p.m.

Repugnican U.S. senators Elizabeth Dole (North Carolina) and John Sununu (New Hampshire) have lost their seats, expanding the Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate, The Associated Press is reporting.

6:45 p.m.

MSNBC has called New Mexico for Obama; it would be hilarious if Obama wins the McCainosaurus’ home state of Arizona, which is right next door.

MSNBC’s count thus far is 200 Obama, 90 McCain.

6:50 p.m.

Ohio has been called for Obama, as has been Pennsylvania. It’s over for the McCainosaurus. Sarah Palin-Quayle can go back to seeing Russia from her back yard.

6:55 p.m.

Mark Shields on PBS just commented that the 2008 presidential election results thus far are looking like how things looked during the Civil War. Yup. As I’ve noted before, the Civil War still rages on. The former slave states are lovin’ the McCainosaurus and the former free states are likin’ Obama. 

Only it’s looking like Obama is making inroads into the usually red Southwestern states. I think that Obama is going to win Nevada as well as New Mexico, and again, hopefully Arizona, too.

7:00 p.m.

MSNBC is now reporting 200 for McCain and 124 for McCain, but add California’s 55 to Obama’s column — California hasn’t been projected yet, but Obama undoubtedly will win California — and that’s 255 for Obama. It’s in the bag for Obama.

7:10 p.m.

MSNBC projecting thus far 207 for Obama and 129 for McInsane. That’s at least 262 for Obama when you add California’s 55…

7:30 p.m.

MSNBC showing 207 Obama to 135 McInsane.

Here are 2004’s presidential election results:

Again, my guess is that after tonight this map will show Obama having made big blue gains into the Southwest. PBS’ commentators are guessing that after tonight the map will look as though the Repugnican Party exists only in the South…

Are we pushing the red-state motherfuckers into the Atlantic Ocean? I sure hope so…

7:45 p.m.

MSNBC saying Obama 207, McCainosaurus 142.

7:55 p.m.

MSNBC saying Obama 207, McInsane 142. The Associated Press saying Obama 220, McInsane 114.

8:05 p.m.

The Associated Press is calling the election for Barack Obama. MSNBC is projecting 284 Obama to 146 McCainosaurus; Florida not projected yet by MSNBC. Still waiting for Arizona, too.

8:15 p.m.

MSNBC says 297 Obama to 146 McInsane. MSNBC hasn’t called Florida yet but other news outlets are saying that Obama won Florida.

PBS is reporting that the McCainosaurus has called Obama and conceded the election…

8:18 p.m.

It looks as though Obama won Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada, all states won by Bush in 2004. Come on, Arizona! Let’s see the Southwest turn blue!

McCain is now on television conceding.

8:25 p.m.

MSNBC says Obama 333, McInsane 156. I think you call that a “landslide”…

Unfortunately, MSNBC says that the McCainosaurus won Arizona. It would have been the cherry on top had he lost his own state…

8:35 p.m.

The Associated Press is calling Obama’s win a “landslide,” so I guess it’s safe to use the “l”-word…

MSNBC still saying 333 Obama, 156 McCainosaurus.

8:45 p.m.

MSNBC saying Obama 338, McInsane 156.

9:00 p.m.

Obama is now speaking.

Early returns are showing Prop 8 passing…

I voted for Obama and for civil rights

My boyfriend calls me a flip-flopper. I prefer to think that I just go with the moment, and that you can never know, in advance, what the moment will bring… You might plan to do one thing, but then, when the moment arrives, it might strike you that you should do another thing instead.

So, although I had declared here that I was going to vote for Ralph Nader, today I actually cast my vote for Barack Obama. As I sat there with my black ballpoint pen filling in ovals on my ballot, I found that the opportunity to vote for the first viable presidential candidate who isn’t a (stupid) white man was just too tempting to pass up. (Flip-flopping would have been voting for John Fossil Fool McCain, I think…)

Not that I’m 100 percent on board the Obamawagon. I’m not, as I’ve noted. Once in office, I think that President Obama will need to be nudged further to the left. 

There’s no way in hell that Obama won’t win my home state of California and all 55 of its electoral votes, the largest prize in the nation, so practically, I could have chosen not to vote for a presidential candidate at all and it wouldn’t have made a difference. But I wanted to add just one more vote to Obama’s final popular vote tally.

I love ya, Ralph, but you just can’t win. I wish that you could. But you can’t.

The Green Party* seemed to have a chance there for a little while, but over the past several years it has shrunk, not expanded. My heart is Green, but damn, it’s so nice to vote for a candidate who actually can win…

Today I also voted against the anti-gay Proposition 8, of course. I find it mind boggling that gay men and lesbians are the last minority group that a good chunk of Americans feel it’s perfectly OK to discriminate against. As has been said, gay is the new black…

There never would be a proposition on the California ballot to revoke women’s right to vote or to bring back slavery, yet there is this odious, anti-Christian and anti-American proposition on California’s ballot today to legalize the treatment of gay men and lesbians as less-than-equal citizens by denying them the right to marriage — a right that the Repugnican-dominated state Supreme Court in May ruled cannot be violated.

Children learning California history in the years to come will be amazed to learn that it ever was at issue, in 2008, as to whether gay men and lesbians should have equal civil rights.

And yes, despite the “arguments” to the contrary by those historically oppressed minority groups that want to keep the civil rights pie all to themselves, gay and lesbian rights are civil rights.

*I should note that this year Nader is not running on the Green Party ticket. Still, he and his running mate, Matt Gonzalez, both ran on the Green Party ticket in elections past and so I still associate Nader and Gonzalez with the Green Party.