Obama... 1st black US President

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.

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 on Tuesday 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.

"May God bless whoever wins tonight," President Bush told dinner guests at the White House, where his tenure runs out on Jan. 20.

The Democratic leaders of Congress celebrated in Washington.

"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."

Shortly after 11 p.m. in the East, The Associated Press count showed Obama with 338 electoral votes, well over the 270 needed for victory. McCain had 127 after winning states that comprised the normal Republican base.

The nationwide popular vote was remarkably close. Totals from 58 percent of the nation's precincts showed Obama with 51 percent and McCain with 47.9.

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.

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.

Democrats also looked for gains in the House. They defeated Republican incumbents Rep. Tom Feeney and Ric Keller in Florida, 22-year veteran Chris Shays in Connecticut and Rep. Robin Hayes in North Carolina.

At least two Democrats lost their seats. Rep. Kevin Mahoney fell 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.

The White House was the main prize of the night on which 35 Senate seats and all 435 House seats were at stake. A dozen states elected governors, and ballots across the country were dotted with issues ranging from taxes to gay rights.

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.

Obama won Colorado, Nevada, California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Florida, Virginia, New Mexico, Iowa, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, New York, Rhode Island, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Maryland and New Jersey, as well as the District of Columbia.

McCain had Nebraska, Idaho, Mississippi, Texas, West Virginia, Utah, Arkansas, Kansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Wyoming, Alabama, South Carolina, Louisiana, South Dakota and North Dakota.

Now the hard part after Obama win, governing in time of crisis, conflicts
LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press Writer
11/05/2008 | 12:40 PM

Obama essentially came out of nowhere, beat the Democratic establishment, conquered doubts about his experience and overcame questions about his race to be elected the first black US president after a grueling campaign that lasted nearly two years.

As president-elect, he faces three immediate challenges: confronting the worst economic conditions since the 1930s Great Depression, determining the next steps in two lingering wars, and leading his Democrats, including liberals expecting that the change he promises will come instantly. It won't.

On the heels of a campaign in which cash wasn't a concern, Obama must tackle all of those tasks with no room in the budget as the nation heads for a painful, perhaps long-lasting, recession.

No new president has faced so much since Franklin Delano Roosevelt — and even he didn't have two wars on his plate.

Roosevelt had four months to come up with programs to address the Great Depression before he took office on March 4, 1933.

Obama gets just 2 1/2 to put together his government; inauguration is Jan. 20.

He will chart the country's course against this dreary backdrop: Unemployment is at 6.1 percent and predicted to rise as high as 7.5 percent next year; pessimistic consumers have curtailed borrowing and spending; home foreclosures are rampant; government health insurance and pension programs face huge financial problems; and, 152,000 US troops are in Iraq more than five years after the initial invasion, while 32,000 are in Afghanistan in the sixth year of the war against terrorism.

With Democrats expanding their majorities in both the House and Senate, Obama will have to figure out how to lead a country that's more conservative than liberal while trying to satisfy the left wing of his party. He will face demands for a quick withdrawal from Iraq. He's promised withdrawal, but carefully.

From the outset, how Obama acts to deal with these conditions will set the tone for his presidency.

Voters got an early glimpse of his style last month when Wall Street collapsed, stocks fluctuated and the government intervened. He struck a cautious stance and deferred to lawmakers dealing directly with the problems. He was deliberative and careful in his response — perhaps just the approach voters were seeking after eight years of what critics call President George W. Bush's cowboy approach.

Yet, Obama may be blamed for recession woes despite the fact that he inherited the mess from Bush. The troubles are on Obama's watch now even if there's little he can do about them. The president in power always suffers when the economy tanks. Just ask the first President George Bush in 1992.

Indeed, coming in with a big victory doesn't guarantee success.

Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson won with 61 percent of the vote in 1964. He won his Great Society programs in his first two years but his administration essentially collapsed in the final two with the escalation of the Vietnam War.

In choosing Obama as the 44th president, the nation took a historic leap beyond its legacy of slavery and toward healing racial tensions just four decades after the tumultuous Civil Rights movement.

Politically, Obama's election amounted to a wholesale rejection of the status quo after eight years of Bush and Republican rule.

Voters were willing to take a chance on a relative newcomer to the national stage. Obama is a 47-year-old black man from Chicago with a liberal voting record who is in just his first Senate term and has offered few specifics on how he would govern.

Culturally, Obama's victory was so much more for a nation on the verge of becoming a true melting pot; government estimates say white people will no longer make up a majority of Americans by 2042.

The son of a black father from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas, Obama's call for change created a movement at a time of great upheaval in the country. And, that proved to be a large enough force to overcome lingering prejudices.

To be sure, the economy proved a powerful motivator.

Preliminary exit poll results showed that six in 10 voters named it as their top issue, far more than other problems named including Iraq and terrorism. Obama was leading among this group. And, nearly all voters — nine in 10 — said the economy was in bad shape and said they were worried about the economy's direction. Obama had the advantage among these voters, too.

Four in 10 said their family financial status was worse than four years ago — the highest number to report that in a presidential race since at least 1992. Nearly three quarters of this group voted for Obama.

Race didn't appear to be much of a hurdle.

Nearly one in 10 whites said race was an important factor in selecting a candidate, though only a tiny fraction said it was the most important factor. In both groups, about six in 10 were voting for McCain.

Obama won nearly half of the white vote while nearly all blacks and two in three Hispanics supported him.

Although Obama played down his skin color, it played a part in his general election strategy. Minorities, as well as youth, were identified early on as a key demographic to register and court.

It appeared to work.

Obama was the overwhelming choice of the one in 10 voters who went to the polls for their first time Tuesday. One in five of the new voters was black, almost twice the proportion of blacks among voters overall. Another one in five of the new voters was Hispanic. About two-thirds of them were under 30 years old.
All — whites, blacks, women, Hispanics, young people, Democrats, Republicans and independents — will have high expectations for Obama's presidency. - AP

and if im not mistaken... Obama's banner... is CHANGE..

and the youth, greatly contributes in the said election that makes Obama next President in US at the age of 47.

in my own point of view,

malaking bahagi ang pagiging presidente ngayon ni Obama sa US,

ma-uunite niya ang kaibahan ng puti sa itim.. kasi, kahit sabihin natin wala na yung pagiging mataas ng mga puti sa mga itim.. racism still exist.

sana, mawala na ng tuluyan yung racial descrimination, though its part of the history.

At anu po ang magiging epekto nito sa ating bayan?

yebaaaaaah.. masaya ako dahil s'ya ang nanalo... we're making history!!

tagubilin wrote:

At anu po ang magiging epekto nito sa ating bayan?

-teka may naging epekto po ba ang pagiging prisedente ni bush
sa ating bayan....?

-di bat ginawa lang siyang special visitor ni GMA??