Obama Elected President as Racial Barrier Falls
by: Adam Nagourney
The New York Times

Barack Hussein Obama was elected the 44th president of the
United States on Tuesday, sweeping away the last racial
barrier in American politics with ease as the country
chose him as its first black chief executive.

The election of Mr. Obama amounted to a national catharsis
- a repudiation of a historically unpopular Republican
president and his economic and foreign policies, and an
embrace of Mr. Obama’s call for a change in the direction
and the tone of the country.

But it was just as much a strikingly symbolic moment in
the evolution of the nation’s fraught racial history, a
breakthrough that would have seemed unthinkable just two
years ago.

Mr. Obama, 47, a first-term senator from Illinois,
defeated Senator John McCain of Arizona, 72, a former
prisoner of war who was making his second bid for the
presidency.

To the very end, Mr. McCain’s campaign was eclipsed by
an opponent who was nothing short of a phenomenon,
drawing huge crowds epitomized by the tens of thousands
of people who turned out to hear Mr. Obama’s victory
speech in Grant Park in Chicago.

Mr. McCain also fought the headwinds of a relentlessly
hostile political environment, weighted down with the
baggage left to him by President Bush and an economic
collapse that took place in the middle of the general
election campaign.

“If there is anyone out there who still doubts that
America is a place where all things are possible, who
still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in
our time, who still questions the power of our democracy,
tonight is your answer,” said Mr. Obama, standing before
a huge wooden lectern with a row of American flags at
his back, casting his eyes to a crowd that stretched far
into the Chicago night.

“It’s been a long time coming,” the president-elect added,
“but tonight, because of what we did on this date in this
election at this defining moment, change has come to
America.”

Mr. McCain delivered his concession speech under clear
skies on the lush lawn of the Arizona Biltmore, in Phoenix,
where he and his wife had held their wedding reception.
The crowd reacted with scattered boos as he offered his
congratulations to Mr. Obama and saluted the historical
significance of the moment.

“This is a historic election, and I recognize the
significance it has for African-Americans and for the
special pride that must be theirs tonight,” Mr. McCain
said, adding, “We both realize that we have come a long
way from the injustices that once stained our nation’s
reputation.”

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Not only did Mr. Obama capture the presidency, but he led
his party to sharp gains in Congress. This puts Democrats
in control of the House, the Senate and the White House
for the first time since 1995, when Bill Clinton was in
office.

The day shimmered with history as voters began lining up
before dawn, hours before polls opened, to take part in
the culmination of a campaign that over the course of two
years commanded an extraordinary amount of attention from
the American public.

As the returns became known, and Mr. Obama passed milestone
after milestone -Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Pennsylvania,
New Hampshire, Iowa and New Mexico – people rolled
spontaneously into the streets to celebrate what many
described, with perhaps overstated if understandable
exhilaration, a new era in a country where just 143 years
ago, Mr. Obama, as a black man, could have been owned as a
slave.

For Republicans, especially the conservatives who have
dominated the party for nearly three decades, the night
represented a bitter setback and left them contemplating
where they now stand in American politics.

Mr. Obama and his expanded Democratic majority on Capitol
Hill now face the task of governing the country through a
difficult period: the likelihood of a deep and prolonged
recession, and two wars. He took note of those circumstances
in a speech that was notable for its sobriety and its
absence of the triumphalism that he might understandably
have displayed on a night when he won an Electoral College
landslide.

“The road ahead will be long, our climb will be steep,”
said Mr. Obama, his audience hushed and attentive, with
some, including the Rev. Jesse Jackson, wiping tears from
their eyes. “We may not get there in one year or even one
term, but America, I have never been more hopeful than I
am tonight that we will get there. I promise you, we as a
people will get there.” The roster of defeated Republicans
included some notable party moderates, like Senator John
E. Sununu of New Hampshire and Representative Christopher
Shays of Connecticut, and signaled that the Republican
conference convening early next year in Washington will
be not only smaller but more conservative.

Mr. Obama will come into office after an election in which
he laid out a number of clear promises: to cut taxes for
most Americans, to get the United States out of Iraq in a
fast and orderly fashion, and to expand health care.

In a recognition of the difficult transition he faces,
given the economic crisis, Mr. Obama is expected to begin
filling White House jobs as early as this week.

Mr. Obama defeated Mr. McCain in Ohio, a central battle-
ground in American politics, despite a huge effort that
brought Mr. McCain and his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin
of Alaska, back there repeatedly. Mr. Obama had lost the
state decisively to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New
York in the Democratic primary.

Mr. McCain failed to take from Mr. Obama the two Democratic
states that were at the top of his target list: New
Hampshire and Pennsylvania. Mr. Obama also held on to
Minnesota, the state that played host to the convention
that nominated Mr. McCain; Wisconsin; and Michigan, a
state Mr. McCain once had in his sights.

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The apparent breadth of Mr. Obama’s sweep left Republicans
sobered, and his showing in states like Ohio and
Pennsylvania stood out because officials in both parties
had said that his struggles there in the primary campaign
reflected the resistance of blue-collar voters to
supporting a black candidate.

“I always thought there was a potential prejudice factor in
the state,” Senator Bob Casey, a Democrat of Pennsylvania
who was an early Obama supporter, told reporters in
Chicago. “I hope this means we washed that away.”

Mr. McCain called Mr. Obama at 10 p.m., Central time, to
offer his congratulations. In the call, Mr. Obama said he
was eager to sit down and talk; in his concession speech,
Mr. McCain said he was ready to help Mr. Obama work through
difficult times.

“I need your help,” Mr. Obama told his rival, according to
an Obama adviser, Robert Gibbs. “You’re a leader on so many
important issues.”

Mr. Bush called Mr. Obama shortly after 10 p.m. to
congratulate him on his victory.

“I promise to make this a smooth transition,” the president
said to Mr. Obama, according to a transcript provided by
the White House .”You are about to go on one of the great
journeys of life. Congratulations, and go enjoy yourself.”

For most Americans, the news of Mr. Obama’s election came
at 11 p.m., Eastern time, when the networks, waiting for
the close of polls in California, declared him the victor.
A roar sounded from the 125,000 people gathered in
Hutchison Field in Grant Park at the moment that they
learned Mr. Obama had been projected the winner.

The scene in Phoenix was decidedly more sour. At several
points, Mr. McCain, unsmiling, had to motion his crowd
to quiet down – he held out both hands, palms down – when
they responded to his words of tribute to Mr. Obama with
boos.

Mr. Obama, who watched Mr. McCain’s speech from his hotel
room in Chicago, offered a hand to voters who had not
supported him in this election, when he took the stage
15 minutes later. “To those Americans whose support I
have yet to earn,” he said, “I may not have won your vote,
but I hear your voices, I need your help, and I will be
your president, too.”

Initial signs were that Mr. Obama benefited from a huge
turnout of voters, but particularly among blacks. That
group made up 13 percent of the electorate, according
to surveys of people leaving the polls, compared with
11 percent in 2006.

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In North Carolina, Republicans said that the huge surge
of African-Americans was one of the big factors that led
to Senator Elizabeth Dole, a Republican, losing her
re-election bid.

Mr. Obama also did strikingly well among Hispanic voters;
Mr. McCain did worse among those voters than Mr. Bush did
in 2004. That suggests the damage the Republican Party
has suffered among those voters over four years in which
Republicans have been at the forefront on the effort to
crack down on illegal immigrants.

The election ended what by any definition was one of the
most remarkable contests in American political history,
drawing what was by every appearance unparalleled public
interest.

Throughout the day, people lined up at the polls for hours
- some showing up before dawn – to cast their votes. Aides
to both campaigns said that anecdotal evidence suggested
record-high voter turnout.

Reflecting the intensity of the two candidates, Mr. McCain
and Mr. Obama took a page from what Mr. Bush did in 2004
and continued to campaign after the polls opened.

Mr. McCain left his home in Arizona after voting early
Tuesday to fly to Colorado and New Mexico, two states
where Mr. Bush won four years ago but where Mr. Obama
waged a spirited battle.

These were symbolically appropriate final campaign stops
for Mr. McCain, reflecting the imperative he felt of
trying to defend Republican states against a challenge
from Mr. Obama.

“Get out there and vote,” Mr. McCain said in Grand
Junction, Colo. “I need your help. Volunteer, knock on
doors, get your neighbors to the polls, drag them there
if you need to.”

By contrast, Mr. Obama flew from his home in Chicago to
Indiana, a state that in many ways came to epitomize the
audacity of his effort this year. Indiana has not voted
for a Democrat since President Lyndon B. Johnson’s land-
slide victory in 1964, and Mr. Obama made an intense bid
for support there. He later returned home to Chicago play
basketball, his election-day ritual.

——–

Elisabeth Bumiller contributed reporting from Phoenix,
Marjorie Connelly from New York and Jeff Zeleny from
Chicago.