History in the Making

Barack Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States in a landslide victory. He takes the position as the first African American President. Barack Obama won unexpected states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Iowa and New Mexico (nytimes.com). Tuesday night marked the end of the longest presidential campaign season in U.S. History- 21 months (cnn.com). The 2008 election was also the most expensive presidential campaign in U.S. history (livemint.com). The candidates spent about $1.6 billion on the election, double the 2004 presidential race, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. When all is tallied, Obama is expected to have raised around $700 million (livemint.com).






The 2008 election also had the first woman (Hillary Clinton) to seriously compete for a party nomination and Sarah Palin became the first woman to appear on the Republican ticket (livemint.com).Obama is not only the first African American to be elected President he is also the first African American to be nominated (livemint.com). According to a preliminary tally, Obama led the race with 349 electoral votes versus 173 for McCain; 270 were needed to win (livemint.com). National exit polls found that Obama had high vote percentages across the board with especially high percentages coming from youth and black votes as predicted (livemint.com). Barack Obama will be inaugurated on January 20, 2009 to lead a country with a failing economy and two wars (newvision). Obama's victory puts a democratic president in charge of the white house for the first time since Bill Clinton left office in January 2001 (newvision).






Tuesday's victory shows American's surprisingly united behind Barack Obama after years of contention and division. Obama's victory was a milestone for the African American and minority communities that will forever echo in history.


For more information:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/05/us/politics/05campaign.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2&bl&ei=5087&en=80ca9fabef5ec328&ex=1226120400&oref=slogin

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/04/election.president/index.html


http://www.livemint.com/2008/11/05234827/Obama-wins-White-House-create.html?pg=3