| Sleepless election nights! |
| Wednesday, 05 November 2008 15:15 |
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Well. What a night. Even though early results indicated Obama was going to win I couldn’t stop watching the coverage. I don’t recommend 1 hours sleep in two days, but how could I sleep? This election has been inspirational for so many reasons. Voters queuing for 4 hours; interviews with 70 and 80 year olds who hadn’t voted since JFK, jubilantly coming out to vote for Obama; people carrying pictures of parents and grandparents who had passed away into the polling booths to honour their memory and include them in this historic moment… One woman reported arriving at her polling station at 5.55am, five minutes before it opened, to find 2,500 people in the queue in front of her. Hearing those stories I knew something special was going to happen. In the end it was more than I’d (nervously) hoped for. Iowa – an overwhelmingly white state – overwhelmingly supported Obama. Across the country Obama won over large swathes of the ‘white’ vote, as well as hispanic, blacks, asian, women, men, northern, southern, working class, middle class and college educated voters. In the end it was the man, his character and his vision that mattered to Americans. In January there’ll be a black family in the White House for the first time – an image that I think will change the way the world views America forever. Americans will look to their First Family and see a reflection of what a modern progressive America looks like. I thought that John McCain’s concession speech was that of a true statesman. The humility with which he encouraged all Americans to unite behind President-Elect Obama was extremely moving. As for Barrack Obama’s victory speech, this was pure electricity. I can’t wait to hear his inauguration speech in January. There is the potential for a lot of good to be done in the next four years. I’m very excited. I hope you are too. |
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