No, really, history!
As we speak, at 04.17, Barack Obama is the new president of the United States. This may be old news by now, but I just woke up after an unplanned nap. When I nodded off, in front of the telly, Obama was on 220 votes. (I'm on the sofa of some friends who had already nodded off before me!) It's all very late for me. I managed to stay up to this unearthly hour by attending the CNN Election Night Party in Central London, in a converted church lit up by stars and stripes and serving three cocktails: the CNN Electini (Belvedere vodka martini shaken or stirred, garnished with blueberry and raspberry), the Donkey Dazzler (Bacardi, cranberry and pineapple juice shaken with fresh ginger and garnished with lime) and the Electric Elephant (Jack Daniel's, lemon juice, syrup de gomme and angostura bitters, shaken and topped with soda). I had a few bottles of Samuel Adams beer instead, for fear of flaking out. It was quite a smart do - well outside of my comfort zone - and they were showing CNN, obviously, on a wall-sized screen. I rubbed shoulders with Ed Milliband, Harriett Harman, Trevor Phillips, Gurinda Chadha, Dianne Abbott, Josh Hartnett, James Purnell, Shami Chakrabati and others. The only downside to this party was the fact that it ended at 3am, when they started sweeping up around us, forcing the move to my friends' house. Anyway, I just woke up and he had won. On Sky, which I'm watching, Irvine Welsh is an unlikely pundit, with a Panama hat on. I'll get some sleep now, on this welcome sofa, but it's looking like a done deal. McCain is conceding in Phoenix. Hooray. He's being pretty gracious, actually.
posted by Andrew Collins @ 4:14 AM
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I have been up all night and i find the BBCs interview of Gore Vidal one of the most entertaining peices of television this year...
It's a great day to cap a great week, hopefully I can leave work this afternoon, and go for a drink at the Democrates Abroad party in Brisbane. People at work are already sick of me humming "a change is gonna come" and "young, gifted and black" for pretty much the whole day. The other fact that almost everyone on my facebook status page has had something to day about today is truely amazing in this age of constant media imputs. Also the fact that as an Australian, i'm writting how excited I am on an english blog, hopefully gives some impressions on todays imprint in the world.
Well enough of this bollocks, I'm just really pleased.
I can't believe you watch Sky - a confirmed socialist worker like yourself must have an aversion to any Murdoch enterprise, surely?
But it's bloody good news. I feel strangely emotional. He's got a lot of work on his hands... has he really got time for that new puppy?
Mrs Collins must really love you...waking her up at 4am to watch an election IN ANOTHER COUNTRY!
;)
For tedious work reasons, I'm having to watch the saturation coverage on BBC Breakfast this morning, and I'm amazingly emotional about it. It feels strange and wonderful to be (kinda) part of such a momentous paradigm-shifty-type event that isn't based on fear and destruction, cf 9/11, 7/7 etc...
Please forgive the slight hyperbole, it's very early.
I didn't think I could still get moved by politics, but watching all those people in Chicago, proudly waving pictures of their parents and grandparents, I was almost blubbing.
Result. Let's hope.
Good news. At least, let's hope so.
It reminds me of how we felt here when Blair got in.
And look what happened there.
That said, much of the BO (unfortunate initials) celebrations are for different reasons, but the world is still a changed place today.
I read Obama's victory speech this morning, and heard excerpts of it on Radio 4 and have got to say it's one of the best speeches I've ever heard. The kind of thing you only expect to hear in a Holywood script, or coming from the mouth of President Bartlet!
McCain's speech sounded very dignified too, although he can probably afford to drop the praise for Palin soon.
I'm almost 'afraid' to post this but on the BBC website this morning it is written
...the American people have made two fundamental statements about themselves: that they are profoundly unhappy with the status quo, and that they are slamming the door on the country's racial past.
Really? I mean..really? Let's see what happens with the burdgeoning hispanic population - the significant racial minority even over 'black' americans.
Also, if it is such a statement about America's racial past, why did the 'southern' states mostly vote republican? Aren't these the 'historically' racially biased states after all?
Like you said Andrew, a significant proportion of the Democratic Electorate wanted Hilary over Obama and the split of the vote for those two was very close. However, what you also failed to mention was many democrats didn't want either but wanted to John Edwards - I personally know half a dozen democrats who were fierce Edward voters.
For those who don't know, not anyone can choose who the democratic or republican nominee is prior to the elections - you have to register your allegiance first and then you can vote. So registered republicans did not vote between Clintone, Obama or Edwards.
So what we have here is a presidential candidate that was 'wanted' by half of half of a third of the population - I know my figures are not accurate, but I'm trying to make a point.
Only then did he become president.
Hardly an overwhelming statement by the 'American People' is it?
Remember when Blair got in (and even Major) and how 'everyone' complained that how can someone who was voted by less than a fifth of the population run the country?
I'm a bit surprised at you Andrew with your normally 'grounded' comments - especially with your inability to want to take sides and please everyone - I expected a bit less of the sensationalism the media seem to be spouting.
Of course I am glad that George Bush is no longer president, but please can we keep this in some perspective?
This was a vote at the very least about change because of the last administration rather than him having any particularly different politics and I don't believe for a second that he was (mainly) voted in because of his skin colour so why are the press focussing on this - especially those that should know better?
A 3am close seems incredibly ill-thought out given The Deciders coming in between three and five.
It seems like all the news channels were on drugs last night. Sky was doing Bruckheimeresque bombast. The BBC had John Bolton on doing an impression of an angry walrus (google a pic) and demanding the head of this dude:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/us_elections_2008/7709966.stm
because he 'didn't know his facts' despite him knowing his facts. Tarn Republicans. It's like Rossgate all over again, but this time it's not personal, it's international.
ITV's Alistair Stewart I SWEAR was doing it Wogan style, bottle of Bailey's under the desk for swigging when the interactive map flashed up. And it did all feel a little Eurovision. So long and not very exciting between the results coming in.
And for something so historic, I don't think we were that interested. I only had one facebook friend online to be my stay-awake wingman. That, and one devoted politico friend who had actually flown to Grant Park to see this 'history in the making'. Such an over-used phrase. All I could think of every time anyone said it was Jay-Z in Beyonce's Crazy in Love video. He raps that THAT was history in the making. Which, in a sleep-deprived semi-hallucinogenic state, kept making me visualise Obama in one of Beyonce's cute little skimpy dresses.
Still, the best man won. That's man. Not black man. Because he's only a bit black, and dammit, it just shouldn't matter. Unless he has magic skin cells which will impart health or doom to the nation, it just shouldn't matter. And now, hopefully, it won't. Race may well have been put to bed as an issue. Unlike gayness, which was quietly under fire last night in the California Prop 8 vote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_8_(2008)
A (non-closeted) queer in the White House? Not in my lifetime by the looks of it.
Anna
Glad to see I wasn't the only one who a) felt quite emotional watching it all on breakfast and b) thought Obama's victory speech was straight out of the Jed Bartlett/Toby Zeigler top drawer. Quite fitting at the end of an election that bore parallels to the final season of West Wing that the new President-elect should claim victory in the oratorical style of the USA's finest fictional President.
Here's hoping his advisors let Obama be Obama.
Your point about Blair is slightly misplaced though - he was only actually elected by his own constituency; the rest of us had no say in that at all - at least in the US everyone has a chance to vote for a Presidential candidate. And yes, there are those who wanted Clinton or Edwards to be the Democrat candidate (I would have preferred Edwards too), but there are those who wanted a whole bunch of other people (Robin Cook, John Prescott, even Margaret Beckett FFS) to be leader of the Labour party when that election happened. And they lost. That's the way democracy works.
Anyway, somewhere last night someone pointed me to
http://isobamapresidentyet.com/
which will continue to be technically accurate for another ten weeks or so (unless it is actually changed in the interim.) But at a silly time this morning it was pretty funny.
-- David
things ... can only get better!
This is post-racialism with a racial flavour.
Still, doesn't happen every day so let's spoil ourselves with sensationalism for a bit.
It's been a tough morning on 3 hours sleep but worth it all the way. Like F-C, I haven't felt this excited by a political result since '97.
David - the yanks don't actually get to vote for a president, they get to vote for electors who pledge to vote for the president. In that way, it is sort of similar to us. We know that if we vote left or right, we'll end up with a certain someone as PM. Same as in the US - they are voting for electors in their state, and know that as a result they will get a certain someone as President.
Anna
Even woolly-liberals like myself would have to admit it was a very good and heartfelt concession speech from that very decent and honourable man John McCain. But I'm glad for America that they now have a chance for real change.
Having said all of that, this is a superb satire on the current mood:
http://pushjelly.blogspot.com/2008/11/america-now-only-half-racist.html
http://pushjelly.blogspot.com/2008/11/america-now-only-half-racist.html
But the "electors" aren't going to be the voters' local MPs, are they? We elect a representative of a party and that party can, and often does, change its leader without recourse to us.
I watched the MSNBC satellite feed but I fell asleep just as they were starting to get some actual results to throw their silly graphics at. Actually it was pretty good, but MSNBC is pretty good, in a US cable news kind of way.
There are clear historical reasons why Obama's victory should be celebrated. And that last guy was just a crook and a dick. But Obama hasn't really said anything of substance during the last six months beyond: "I'm not George Bush" and "John McCain is George Bush." That's the mark of a successful political campaign these days, I suppose. But given the disappointments of New Labour, and the fact that he's not actually our president, is it worth investing this much hope in (and getting this excited about) Obama?
And why all this pussyfooting around about race? I can't believe anyone thinks Obama's blackness didn't play a huge part in his getting the Democratic nomination (at least as much a part as the fact that he isn't Hillary Clinton). And New Orleans surely had as much to do with the queues at the polls yesterday as the black man they were waiting to vote for. For "charismatic" and "inspirational" I can only read "not old" and "black", because he clearly isn't charismatic and he seems more aspirational than inspirational to me. I think he's a smart bloke but I also think he's a career politician who has grasped his moment. I hope he does actually have some ideas about what he's going to do, and I hope they're not too far removed from what all those people who voted for who-knows-what yesterday actually wanted.
Anna, that's a very good point. And, of course, there have been more than a few times when the "electors" have declined to support the person they have been ask to.
But the voters don't go into the polling booth and see the name of the Elector there, they see the names of the Presidential candidates. We still only get to vote for a local MP who may or may not have any say in the appointment of the leader.
-- David
I really fail to see what so many people outside the USA are so excited about. (And it's not like I have no American connections-I work for an American company, and have family in the USA).
Am I really the only person who was bored of the whole thing about 18 months ago, and couldn't really have cared less who won? Anyone who wants to run a country is usually a bad choice to do so, they all fuck up on roughly the same number of things, just in slightly different ways.
I can safely say that none of the last three American presidents have had any tangible effect on my life here in the UK, and I don't expect this one to be any different.
Bored Irishman, you're lucky if the US President has had no "tangible effect" on your life whatsoever. You only have to go back to Ronald Reagan to find the first tangible effect - it was he who created the atmosphere in which free market economics could run riot - enthusiastically supported by our own PM at the time - which arguably led to the state we're in right now. And the current incumbent of the White House has had a pretty tangible effect on the 200-plus families of those British (and Irish) soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
America's foreign and economic policies affect us all, like it or not. They are a global superpower, and one whom this country allies itself with. Sorry to be all sanctimonious, and you're entitled to not care about the US election, but don't pretend it doesn't affect us all. It does.
I am so happy as an American to finally have leadership that is capable and forward-thinking. Eight years of embarrassment are over!!
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