Election 2008

Dang it feels so good to be wrong. It feels so good to learn that all my paranoia was just that, paranoia. What Bradley effect?

I sat with my Windows Vista laptop (yes, I’m a PC) with CNN, pollster.com and fivethirtyeight.com tabs. The CNN map provided the raw update information and the pollster.com map provided a list of which news networks (ABC, CBS, CNN, FOX, NBC and the AP) had called which states plus a running total of electoral votes called by all networks, dark blue or dark red on the map, and those called by at least one network, light blue or light red on the map. On both maps all you had to do was run the mouse pointer over a state to get the display information. I had the TV tuned to NBC with the sound off, because lord were they annoying, to get the occasional piece of insight. At fivethirtyeight.com Nate Silver was providing snippits of information related to the relative performance of Obama vs. Kerry. Silver was right on target about Indiana remaining close and Virginia eventually going to Obama.

There were some scary moments in the early going. McCain appeared to be pulling away in Indiana and clearly Virginia was not going to be an early call. Then Obama pulled ahead in Florida. At fivethirtyeight.com they were declaring that Obama had more reason to be excited about Florida than Virginia.

Vermont was the first state to be called for Obama.

At 8:00 PM EST the polls in New England and the North Atlantic coast closed and immediately almost all the Blue States (is that term even meaningful anymore?), Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Delaware, Maryland and New Jersey plus the District of Columbia, fell into the Obama camp. The sole exception was Pennsylvania. The early returns from Ohio and North Carolina looked promising but the main focus was Pennsylvania.

Illinois went blue as soon as its polls closed.

Somewhere around 8:30 NBC and ABC called Pennsylvania for Obama. It was an enormous relief as one by one the other networks followed and Pennsylvania turned dark blue on my pollster.com map.

Since New Hampshire had gone dark blue earlier that meant Obama would carry all of the Kerry states for a total of 252 electoral votes and now the wait began for Red States to flip. The polls had closed in Colorado and New Mexico at 9:00. We’d have to wait for Iowa until 10:00.

In the meantime Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, New York and Rhode Island remained true and turned dark blue on my pollster.com map.

I had this fleeting paranoia attack of my nightmare scenario coming true only it was Colorado that refused to go blue rather than Pennsylvania.

While I was focusing on Colorado, Ohio on my CNN map flipped to blue. I just stared at it. Remembering the fiasco in 2000 with Florida I refrained from getting overly excited but I knew that if it held up, the election was essentially over and all that was left was for the clock to get to 11:00 when the West Coast polls closed.

Ohio held and the question was no longer would Obama win but how big was the victory going to be.

In the meantime New Mexico went blue.

At 10:00 Iowa joined her sister states in the Obama column. One has to wonder what the Republicans were smoking when they claimed Iowa was a dead heat. At 11:55 NBC switched to local news. I didn’t hear much of what they said. I was watching the clock on my cable box tick off the minutes.

At 11:00 NBC switched back to network news and we were greeted with a picture of a smiling Barack Obama and the declaration that he had been elected the 44th President of the United States as California, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii added their votes to Obama’s total.

It was over, but it was far from over. Nevada, Colorado, Florida and even a tardy Virginia eventually joined the parade of states declaring for Barack Obama.

The current numbers stand at 349 – 173 as some networks have now given Indiana to Obama. North Carolina, as of 10:00 AM EST November 5th 2008, is still undecided.

I had lost much of my respect for John McCain because of the campaign he waged and the choices he made (Sarah Palin? Who said Sarah Palin?) but his concession speech last night restored all of it and more. Clearly McCain got some lousy advice.

As for Sarah Palin, it’s too much to hope she’ll go away. There is going to be a come to Jesus debate in the Republican Party about what to do now and Palin is clearly a favorite of the right wing conservative social values segment of the party. Luckily I think there are calmer, more talented and far more appropriate leaders in the Republican Party such as Charlie Crist.

I thought Obama’s acceptance speech in Grant Park was damn good. Of course having 500,000 people hanging on your every word and cheering everything you said helped. The one shot that I will always remember was Jessie Jackson in tears as he listened to Obama speak.

It wasn’t all good news however. The Pro-choice cause did well but Gay Rights took it on the chin.

Anti-abortion measures in Colorado, California and South Dakota all went down to defeat. I believe the American people are making it clear that they do not want the government to regulate what is clearly a medical issue.

The biggest disappointment of the night was that Proposition 8 passed in California. This is a bitter disappointment especially given the underhanded tactics used by the Proposition 8 supporters. Similar prohibitions against gay marriage passed in Arizona and Florida. Arkansas outlawed adoptions by gay couples.

Clearly we have some work to do in this area. But notice how the battlefield has shifted slightly. In Arizona the measure that passed was much less restrictive than the measure that was defeated the last time around and left open the possibility of equal legal rights under something like a Civil Union.

What’s happening is that slowly, but surely, equal legal protection is being accepted. Folks just don’t want to call it marriage. Actually, I could probably live with that compromise but I’m not gay so it’s not really my choice.

Now comes the hard part. Obama has to figure out a way to maintain the enthusiasm and work not only with the new Democratic Congress but with the Republicans as well. Then he has to figure out how to address the enormous problems facing the country and the world.

Can we all manage to work together and change the world?

Yes we can.