Daily News Feed 11.05.08

Obama: ‘This is your victory’
Barack Obama told supporters that “change has come to America” as he claimed victory in a historic presidential election. “The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. 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,” Obama said in Chicago, Illinois, before an estimated crowd of up to 240,000 people. With Obama’s projected win, he will become the first African-American to win the White House. Obama had an overwhelming victory over Sen. John McCain, who pledged Tuesday night to help Obama lead. (Continue Reading…)

African Americans Revel in Obama’s Historic Presidential Election
In churches and bars, on the street and in their homes, African Americans celebrated Barack Obama’s historic presidential election victory on Tuesday with tears, horn blasts and shouts of joy. In New York, people of all races streamed down from Broadway from Columbia University to Obama’s campaign office at 105th Street chanting “O-ba-ma.” Obama supporters drove through the streets of downtown Washington for hours, honking their horns and cheering. A crowd of several hundred people gathered outside the gates of the White House in the drizzle, beating a drum. (Continue Reading…)

Essay: Obama’s transcendence is beyond race
The elevation of Barack Obama to the White House is a transcendent moment, for what this election says about a nation where blacks were once considered property. And that might be the least of it. This is a once-in-a-lifetime event. At odd intervals — 1800, 1860, 1932, 1980 — the nation reaches a “pivot point,” an election that draws the line between the past and the future. And 2008 appears to be just such a line in the shifting sands of our convulsive times. Reagan-style conservative supremacy? Over. The era of baby boomer leadership? Waning. And maybe, just maybe, something new has arrived: a post-partisan approach to governing, founded on the Obama Coalition, fueled by young and minority voters, powered by the 21st century technologies that helped turn a first-term senator from Illinois into a historic lodestone. (Continue Reading…)