Late-Night Election Thoughts

By BJ

Well, it is all over but the lawsuits, though they’re unlikely to change anything.  As I write this, Obama holds slim leads in both Indiana and North Carolina with 99% of the precincts reporting.  That will push him to 364 Electoral Votes, assuming he loses Missouri and Montana.  If he does carry Missouri, it takes him to 375.  As the vote in the three west-coast states is being counted, Obama’s margin in the popular vote is also increasing, and should end up over 5%.  All in all, a pretty damned good night.

McCain’s concession speech was good, (though I have to disagree with Fester in that I don’t think it out-shined Obama’s acceptance speech, but then few can match Obama on public speaking).  McCain was the gracious and honorable “maverick” that only showed up once or twice during the campaign such as his convention speech.  There have been a lot of pre-mortems and there will be a stream of post-mortems for his campaign, but in the end it is not wrong to point out that no other Republican would have made the race even this close.

On that note, I do fear what will become of the Republican Party now.  While McCain was gracious in defeat, his supporters were far less so, and reading around the right-wing blogs, graciousness seems in very short supply.

I know that some are congratulating Obama on his win, such as our own John McCain. Yes, that’s fair, but if you listened to the concession speech the reasons this is such a “great moment” is because Obama is black, not because he was qualified, or even able to handle the Presidency. As I said before that makes this election even more pathetic. It was all about electing the first “Affirmative Action” candidate to office.

I can't wait to see the quality of discourse from the right over the next four years.

As for Obama, what can be said about his acceptance speech?  In the words of one of the commentators at CBC, seems to be going for the title of poet-laureate as well as President of the United States.  As with many of speeches, it was powerful, moving, inspiring, and included a call to action and for sacrifice that we haven’t heard for a long time from a politician.  Whether or not people understand just what he means by that is still debatable, but I like what I hear.  That said, I don’t envy him the task ahead.

And just for the hell of it, I’ll leave the final word tonight to my buddy salvage:

I can't believe y'all elected a secret Muslim Manchurian Marxist Fascists Liberal Black Panther Bastard spawn of Malcolm X ant-Semite terrorist radical man-dater who wasn't even born in America making him completely unconstitutional as your President.

Right now I wish I was the guy who owned the biggest paper and data shredding concern in the DC area. I would tell my guys that they'd be working straight through 'till the New Year.

Oh the wignuts, this is going to be a complete phase-shift, they will suddenly fall in hate with government "jackboots" all over again. It will be like the Clinton years only louder and oh so crazier.

Everything good that happens from now on will be because GW Bush was President, everything bad because Obama, yes we are going through the looking glass.

But that just means more things to laugh at.