President elect Barack Obama : after the event : PICs analysis

[General Duke]

 

Barack Obama to be America's first black presidentGeorge Bush and John McCain praise Democratic winner as record numbers turn out to vote in historic election

 

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[General Duke]

Paul Krugman Lets Loose: No Longer Ruled By "Monsters"

 

Last night wasn't just a victory for tolerance; it wasn't just a mandate for progressive change; it was also, I hope, the end of the monster years.

 

What I mean by that is that for the past 14 years America's political life has been largely dominated by, well, monsters. Monsters like Tom DeLay, who suggested that the shootings at Columbine happened because schools teach students the theory of evolution. Monsters like Karl Rove, who declared that liberals wanted to offer "therapy and understanding" to terrorists. Monsters like Dick Cheney, who saw 9/11 as an opportunity to start torturing people.

[General Duke]

The Obama Revolution

 

Nov. 4, 2008, was the day when American politics shifted on its axis.

 

The ascent of an African-American to the presidency — a victory by a 47-year-old man who was born when segregation was still the law of the land across much of this nation — is a moment so powerful and so obvious that its symbolism needs no commentary.

 

But it was the reality of power, not the symbolism, that changed Tuesday night in ways more profound than meet the eye.

 

The rout of the Republican Party, and the accompanying gains by Democrats in Congress, mean that Barack Obama will assume office with vastly more influence in the nation’s capital than most of his recent predecessors have wielded.

 

The only exceptions suggest the magnitude of the moment. Power flowed in unprecedented ways to George W. Bush in the year after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. It flowed likewise to Lyndon B. Johnson after his landslide in 1964.

 

Beyond those fleeting moments, every president for more than two generations has confronted divided government or hobbling internal divisions within his own party.

 

The Democrats’ moment with Obama, as a brilliant campaigner confronts the challenges of governance, could also prove fleeting. For now, the results — in their breadth across a continent — suggest seismic change that goes far beyond Obama's 6 percent margin in the popular vote.

 

The evening recalled what activist Eldridge Cleaver observed of the instant when Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus and a movement followed: “Somewhere in the universe a gear in the machinery shifted.”

 

Here are five big things about the machinery of national politics and Washington that will be different once Obama takes office on Jan. 20, 2009:

[Koora-Tuunshe]

A WORLD LEADER

[General Duke]

Obama reveloution part 2:

The crash of the conservative wave

 

For most of the past 30 years, since the dawn of the Reagan Era, conservatives have held the momentum in American politics. Even the Clinton years were shaped — and constrained — by conservative ideas (work requirements for welfare, the Defense of Marriage Act) and conservative rhetoric (“the era of Big Government is over”). Republicans rode this wave to win the presidency five of seven times since 1980, and to dominate Congress for a dozen years after 1994.

 

Now the wave has crashed, breaking the back of the modern Republican Party in the process.

 

Obama’s victory and the second straight election to award big gains to congressional Democrats showed that the 2006 election was not, as Karl Rove and others argued at the time, a flukish result that reflected isolated scandals in the headlines at the time.

 

Republicans lost their reform mantle. Voters who wanted change voted for Obama 89 percent to 9 percent. They lost their decisive edge on national security. They even lost the battle over taxes.

 

Republicans lost support in every area of the country. Virginia went Democratic, and North Carolina at midnight hung in the balance. Republicans still hold a significant, if smaller, chunk of the South and a smattering of western states. The cities were lost long ago. The suburbs fell last night — and even the exurbs are shaky.

 

Republicans lost one of their most effective political tactics. Portraying Al Gore or John F. Kerry as exotic and untrustworthy characters with culturally elitist values proved brutally effective for the GOP in 2000 and 2004, as it had in numerous other races for years. In 2008, such tactics barely dented Obama — who because of his race and background looked at first like a more vulnerable target — and they backfired against such candidates as Sen. Elizabeth Dole in North Carolina, who was routed badly after trying to paint Democrat Kay Hagan as an atheist.

 

The movement that brought so many conservatives to great power over the past 20 years — Gingrich, DeLay, Bush, Cheney and Rove — is left without a clear leader, without a clear agenda and without a clear route back.

 

The crash of the conservative wave does not necessarily mean the rise of a liberal one. By stressing middle-class tax cuts and the rights of gun owners Obama showed he is sensitive to hot buttons. But he will take power with the opposition party diminished, demoralized and divided by a draining internal argument about the future.

[General Duke]

Obama reveloution part3:

A Democratic headlock

 

Many people find Obama’s post-partisan rhetoric soothing. But it’s doubtful that these sentiments, even if sincere, reflect the reality of the new Washington.

 

This is a city that defines itself by partisanship. Politicians and the operatives they support play for the shirts or the skins and believe that one side’s gain is the other’s loss.

 

In this environment, Democrats have the capital in a headlock, holding more power at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue than they have had for at least 32 years (Jimmy Carter) and, more realistically, 44 years (Johnson). Obama seems ready to press this advantage. The best early clue of his ambitions: He wants sharp-elbowed Democratic Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) to run his White House.

 

Democrats are positioned to do more than move legislation. They will flush Republicans out of key positions in the federal government and lobbying firms. They will install their people in the federal courts. They will be positioned to raise money for those who usually give to Republicans and easily recruit the most desirable candidates in 2010, as other Democrats look to join what looks like a winning team.

 

Rainbow rules

 

While Obama’s race hovered over this campaign, what was most striking was that it was not the all-consuming subject that it would have been in the past. Exit polls showed Obama pulling support from 43 percent of white voters, 2 percentage point higher than Kerry.

 

And look around elsewhere in American politics. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s gender was a novelty when she first took the gavel but now draws little notice. Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) is a top member of the House Democratic leadership.

 

Meanwhile, the Republican Party’s inability to offer more diversity in its top ranks — Sarah Palin notwithstanding — threatens to become a crippling liability. Hispanics broke for Obama 67 percent to 31 percent.

 

The party inexplicably failed to field a single minority candidate with a plausible chance to win a House or Senate seat or a governorship. It will enter the next Congress just as it did the past two: without a single black member.

 

A party dominated by white males is poorly positioned to prosper among an increasingly diverse electorate. Somehow, the GOP needs to find new ways to appeal to minorities — or risk a long life in the wilderness as a percentage of the overall population continues to shrink.

 

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[General Duke]

The base celebrate

 

 

 

[General Duke]

A night like no other

 

 

 

[General Duke]

 

After a Decisive Victory, Obama Chooses Transition Team as Challenges Loom

 

In his first major move as president-elect, Barack Obama has asked Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), a tough-minded tactician with West Wing experience, to serve as his White House chief of staff, Democratic sources tell Politico.

 

Emanuel has said to friends that he wants and will take the job, but it was not a done deal as of early this morning. Obama plans to move swiftly with his transition announcement and could name Emanuel this week, the sources said. He then plans rapid-fire announcements on his economic and national security teams.

 

If Emanuel — a member of the House Democratic leadership with ambitions to one day to be House speaker — were to turn it down, former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) would likely get the nod, the sources said.

 

[General Duke]

Obama Sweeps to Historic Victory

Nation Elects Its First African-American President Amid Record Turnout; Turmoil in

 

more in Politics & Campaign »WASHINGTON -- Sen. Barack Obama was elected the nation's first African-American president, defeating Sen. John McCain decisively Tuesday as citizens surged to the polls in a presidential race that climaxed amid the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

 

"Change has come," Sen. Obama told a huge throng of cheering supporters in Chicago at a midnight rally.

 

In his first speech as victor, Sen. 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." (See the full text of Obama's speech.)

 

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.''

 

View Interactive

 

Click to see an interactive map of election results.

D.C. Celebrates Obama Victory

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Thousands of Barack Obama supporters take to the streets moments after his acceptance speech and head to the White House to celebrate Tuesday's historic election. (Nov. 5)

The culmination of the epic two-year campaign marks a historic moment in a nation that since its founding has struggled with racial divisions. It also ushers in a period of dominance for Democrats in Washington for the first time since the early years of President Bill Clinton's first term. With Tuesday's elections, Sen. Obama's party will control both houses of Congress as well as the White House, setting the scene for Democrats to push an ambitious agenda from health care to financial regulation to ending the war in Iraq.

 

In becoming the U.S.'s 44th president, Illinois Sen. Obama, 47 years old, defeated Arizona Sen. McCain, 72, a veteran lawmaker and Vietnam War hero. Despite a reputation for bucking his own party, Sen. McCain could not overcome a Democratic tide, which spurred voters to take a risk on a candidate with less than four years of national political experience. Sen. Obama is the first northern Democrat elected president since John F. Kennedy in 1960.

 

Sen. McCain conceded the election to Sen. Obama, congratulating him and pledging to help bring unity to the country. Speaking from outside the Arizona Biltmore Hotel in Phoenix, Sen. McCain told his supporters: "It's natural tonight to feel some disappointment. Though we fell short, the failure is mine, not yours." (Read more on McCain's concession.)

 

Sen. McCain was defeated in Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Mexico and New Hampshire, swing states he was hoping to secure for the Republican column.

 

According to a preliminary tally, Sen. Obama led the race with 349 electoral votes versus 162 for Sen. McCain; 270 were needed to win.

 

Also elected, as vice president: Joe Biden, the veteran senator from Delaware who has promised to help Sen. Obama steer his agenda through Congress.

 

Sen. Obama's victory was built on record fund raising and a vast national campaign network. It remade the electoral map that had held fast for eight years. He overwhelmed reliable Democratic strongholds in the Northeast and West Coast. He won big in the industrial Midwest and contested fiercely in areas of traditional Republican strength. He won Virginia, the first time a Democratic candidate had taken the state since Lyndon Johnson in 1964. And he finally wrested Florida and Ohio from the GOP, two states that had bedeviled his party in the last two elections.

[General Duke]

How they voted

 

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[General Duke]