History has been made. There are those who will choose to be left behind by history, and now begins the difficult task of inviting them to either join the 21'st century or kindly stay out of the way.

so Ezra gets his own 1992

God bless us, one and all.

God bless Jesse Jackson, grateful (and don't you doubt it!) in obsolescence.

God bless everyone who voted this time around - who even if they voted against the black guy legitimised the notion that he could be president.

God bless everyone who didn't get to vote, but who helped anyone else, in the end, to do so. I watched in Britain, where people pooh-oohed the idea that others had "literally" died to get us to this point. "You don't think people really had to die to put black guys on the ballot? On the judiciary? In the Senate? We can forget easily what it was like before but make no mistake - this is the culmination of a life-or-death struggle.

God bless everyone who I can't get straight to recognising through tears, emotion, and exhaustion.

God bless us one and all. Happy Christmas everybody, he is walking among us.

My basic emotion is relief.

Yes, exactly-- I wasn't even fully cognizant of how much of a burden the past eight years has been until tonight. At best, it was like being stuck out in public with embarrassingly nutso relatives, and at worst... well, without declaring a move to Canada, it often seemed like a good idea to at least invest in some real estate there. Just in case.

Tomorrow I'll be smirking a bit, but it'll take a day or two to move on to all-out gloating. And of course the wingnuts are most effective out of power, so we have to be prepared to face that... Ezra's too young to remember, I'm sure, but Rush Limbaugh started his 'Day XX, American Held Hostage' crap pretty much as soon as Clinton won.

Right, I see I've got trite-yet-histrionic-asshole-of-the-year sewn up...

It was like that here in downtown Seattle, too. Just a spontaneous, joyous, patriotic celebration. It was really inspiring to see.

The skill of an Obama administration has yet to be proven.

Yes, but one very very important milestone has been reached: for the first time in my adult life, there is a grown-up in the White House. It's a very promising step...

it appears from the early exits that the 18-29 vote only increased their share of the vote by 1% from 2004 good thing they supported Obama 2:1

Read this item from Kos before judging the youth vote:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/11/5/54025/9539/19/653906

That the reaction in streets all over the country (or at least in Harlem, where I was) was the exact same as Ezra described says something about the authenticity and necessity of the reaction. It was the most positive mass movement I've been in. I knew the reaction would be good-- I just didn't know how good.

Same reaction here in Brooklyn. A mixed group from a mixed neighborhood went out into the streets, chanted "Yes We Can" and cheered on passing cars, who also honked and cheered. Two girls waved American flags. It was really inspiring and great to hear that similar celebrations happened in other cities.

There was the same reaction here in Boston - it was like New Years Eve in Copley Square, and the sidewalks around BU later were full of people high-fiving as they went home from the rallies and bars.

I am really looking forward to having a president that I'll turn the radio volume up to listen to.

God Bless Barack Obama - there is a world of work ahead of him.

I hear you, Ezra. Right there with you.

Off to work for the new administration....

Yes, exactly-- I wasn't even fully cognizant of how much of a burden the past eight years has been until tonight. At best, it was like being stuck out in public with embarrassingly nutso relatives

If you listened to those relatives talk about politics over the past 8 years, you'd realize that for some of us, the experience of being stuck in public with nutso relatives was quite literal.

[img]http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/election.png[/img]

After the constant anxiety and uncertainty of the last eight years, maybe that's enough.

It is. It really is.

It partly feels like the day after a great election. It also feels not unlike like the morning after Nixon resigned.

I just want to take the time to thank jacqueline and all of the folks that post here who worked for the campaign.

You all made this possible.

Yeah, U Street was incredible. I have never seen anything like it.

A few photos - even in these the totally un-self-conscious integration is evident: http://www.flickr.com/photos/brandonwu/sets/72157608668727540/

It was like this in Philly too (until the cops decided to disperse everyone for no reason), except that it looked like basically nothing because of how many fewer people it was than when the Phillies won last Wednesday.

Brandon Wu,

Great pictures!!

And to everyone:
CONGRATULATIONS to all my American friends!

If you listened to those relatives talk about politics over the past 8 years, you'd realize that for some of us, the experience of being stuck in public with nutso relatives was quite literal.

Good point-- I'm lucky in that most of my more conservative relatives live elsewhere, and we've never been close. It's kind of a chicken/egg thing; probably part of the reason that we aren't close is because our worldviews diverge so much and always have. My dad was on the conservative side of apolitical, but he a) died twenty years ago, actually on the day GHWB was inaugurated, and b) usually adapted himself to us instead of the other way around.

So yeah, I'm very lucky in that respect-- I can ignore or dismiss the sillier relatives pretty easily.

It was such a good feeling when suddenly, all around me here in NYC there was an eruption of cheers and shouts and car horns honking.

And then this morning, on the commute to work, people were smiling, somewhat dazed, overtired, running late, and clearly proud. Awesome.

There was a great article on GreenFaucet about the effects of Obama's win on the economy. While this is a conservative website (for the most part) they have seemed to become accepting of Obama. Good read.

http://www.greenfaucet.com/economy/out-of-the-election-and-into-the-frying-pan/99799

Interesting Voting Trends for 50 states & DC divided into 3 groups of 17:
Per Capita income - top 17 - 15 voted for Obama, middle 17 - 11 Obama, bottom 17 - 4 Obama (US Commerce Dept 2006)

College Grads - Top 17 - 15 Obama, middle 17 - 9 Obama, bottom 17 - 5 Obama (US Census 2000)

Church attendence - Top 17 - 2 Obama, middle 17 - 14 Obama, bottom 17 - 14 Obama (Gallup 2006)

Correlation is not causation BUT the GOP increasingly tries to divide the country into good & godless America. Bad strategy: more affluent, educated, and secular Americans are choosing the liberal agenda.

It reminds me of the descriptions I've read of VE and VJ days.

I was down at the White House. The scene was absolutely giddy. No crowd I've ever been in -- sports celebrations, parades, marches -- has ever had that sustained giddiness.

Maybe my housemates and I should have headed into DC after leaving the bar in Arlington, but then, the bar itself was plenty crowded and excited, even if it didn't spill out into the street. I guess I'll just try extra hard to be in DC for the inauguration.

I lived in LeDroit Park over the summer, and, sitting in an apartment in San Fran when 8 pm (11 pm Eastern) struck Tuesday night, I was really wishing I was there. I'd rather have been at U St. than Grant Park, even. I'm a white guy, and whenever I'd wear my Obama shirt over the summer I was everyone's best friend...it was like 3 centuries of slavery, Jim Crow, poverty and discrimination were at least temporarily forgiven and forgotten, and all of a sudden people were trading black power salutes with this white guy from the Midwest. So anyway, I'm sad to have missed the anti-race riot and happy to hear a description from the ground over there.

PS Brandon Wu, those pictures are amazing...as glad as I was to see this election finally bringing the 9/11 era to a close, seeing these pictures and seeing all those teary African-American faces in the crowd at Grant Park last night, it's a reminder that a much longer and much more bitter struggle turned a huge corner last night. What a beautiful night.