That’s President Barack Hussein Obama, if you please.
Barack Obama has been elected as the 44th President of these United States.
I would deeply love for Indiana to cast its electoral votes for Obama. At the moment, Indiana is leaning toward Obama with an 8,000 vote lead and 94% of the votes reported. And yet, Wayne County, Indiana — my old home county — has 0% reporting. Come on, Richmond — bring us home.
Senator McCain is giving a gracious concession speech.
Update Unexplained glitches delaying Wayne County.
Update From the comments:
Regarding Wayne County: according to radio station WKBV, one voting machine malfunctioned in such a way that the votes recorded could not be retrieved. The election officials are awaiting a call from Omaha to figure out the problem.
Update Wayne County results in. Now with 99% of the votes counted, Obama looks like he’s leading Indiana by about 15,000 votes with 2.2 million having been cast.
Yeah, what’s up with Wayne County? Are they just trying to be dramatic, or what?
Dang-I live in the county where the two mayors were bitch slapping each other in the May primary-and am a native of the county that is holding up Indiana’s results in November.
I must be a jinx;-)
Ladies and gentlemen, the next President of the United States, Barack Obama!
I cheered, I shouted, I danced on the street.
Hey.. Doug.. what’s with eastern IN? Union County had glitches in the primary.. and now Wayne Co. And early on Obama was winning Fayette County — my home — redneck county..
No idea at all. Wayne County is certainly taking the torch from Lake County.
According to WKBV radio station, Ken Paust (one of the Wayne County Commissioners) said that the election officials have been unable to obtain the results from *one* voting machine. They have called Omaha, but Omaha has not called back yet.
(“Indiana wants me, but I won’t call back there…” slight rewriting, of the song.)
I think his Dad or some relative used to live across the street from me — owned a printing company.
Per the Star’s website, Wayne County is suddenly and completely on the board: with 100 percent reporting, McCain won it 51-47. With 98.6 percent reporting, Obama leads 49.7 to 49.2. The only counties with any outstanding votes are Vigo, Allen, LaPorte, Jasper, Allen, Jennings, and Monroe, most of which are good for Obama. I don’t want to jinx it, but…
@ Doug: If you lived near Charles Elementary School, the elder Mrs.Paust did live in that area up until recently, I believe. The Pausts now own almost all of the printing companies in the county.
@ John M: I guess Omaha called back. :)
I remember Paust Printing….memories.
MSNBC just had Obama up in Indiana by 23,000 with 99% of precincts reporting…but are still calling it too close to call.
1:09 am central-Indiana is called blue!!!!!! Now I can go to bed! Night y’all!
It’s 2:00 a.m., and MSNBC is now calling Indiana for Obama 50% to 49%. CBS News also has called Indiana for Obama. CNN has the same figures, but has not called Indiana for Obama yet. And I’m off to sleep for a few hours.
Uh… can I give you a raincheck on that cartwheel?
Obama’s victory was about many things beyond race but it was also about race. I remember sitting with my parents in the late 60s watching on TV the west side of Chicago burning.They recognized burning stores they used to shop at.
They made over and over the same point that when we ( I was pre-school)lived there, ‘Blacks hadn’t moved west of Ashland Ave’,but that they were starting to ‘move west’.That was a common frame of reference. ‘The Blacks were moving in and white people just had to get out.If not, no one would be safe in their homes’. My parents had moved out earlier because during the ww2 years and just after, housing for families was impossible to find in the city. ..They watched TV and all their fears were justified.They felt so lucky ‘to have gotten out’ when they could.
After that in the 70s well-meaning urban planners and thinkers thought integration and new urban tenement housing were the only viable ways to overcome ‘ghetto problems’ They couldn’t foresee making new more grotesque black ghettos. Open housing laws,and school integration didnt work because whites just moved out to newer all white suburban spawl. So,formerly all white schools did become quickly all black and crime-ridden. ‘Why’ is another discourse.
Since race and economic level were tightly tied,we ended up with poor white and poor black areas and lots of mutual mistrust.I grew up ‘a poor white’ living in an all-white neighborhood, and no where has racism been more strident.
The dialogue by many back then was was ‘what to do about the black problem’ and many were well-meaning folks. Blacks had a raw deal,but still no one should be expected to live in high crime areas and that’s what black areas always were:that was the mindset.
I wept a little last night thinking how far the race dialogue has advanced,and for many, race has advanced beyond ‘the race issue.Obama,even as an obviously black man, is beyond the issue of race,and that’s how race can be set aside in favor of a broader perspective. People under 40 already no longer divide by race any more.
Obama’s presidency is unbelievable when I actually think about how things used to be..
Those in their late 60s like me, but black , surely have a different more poignant retroview of these same years.
(I don’t like using the term ‘black ghetto’,but it’s the term most have used..blame it on E. Presley)