NBC news has called it: Obama elected 44th president.
They called California, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii for Obama, pushing him to at least 284 electoral votes:
Obama reached the 270 electoral votes he needed for election at 11 p.m. ET, when NBC News projected that he would win California, Washington and Oregon.Sphere: Related Content
Filed under: 2008 Campaign, US Politics | |
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November 5th, 2008 at 12:44 am
This has been a dark day for America. There is no silver lining to this cloud, except that it possibly can be remedied in four years.
November 5th, 2008 at 2:46 am
Because it couldn’t possibly be any worse than the past 8 years, Capt?
Dr. Taylor, I wish you could have seen what it was like on campus after he was declared the winner. Two hundred-plus students (myself included) ran out of their dorm rooms and apartments into the street and started crying and hugging each other. I was embracing people that I normally could not stand to be in the same room with. Someone lit fireworks in a parking lot. People that normally did not acknowledge each other’s existence were treating each other like family. It was so beautiful. A couple of on-duty campus police even blocked the street for a while so everyone could celebrate (campus officials eventually had them escort everyone to the Amphitheater). I have never seen that happen before in my life.
For that moment, nothing mattered except that we witness two great things happen in one election.
November 5th, 2008 at 7:31 am
Captain D: I understand that your preferred candidate didn’t win, but gee whiz. And Sheri has a point–it isn’t as if the previous 8 years have worked out all that well on a number of fronts.
Sheri: That is pretty remarkable, given the generally apolitical/apathetic nature of our campus.
November 5th, 2008 at 11:07 am
About those college kids celebrating in the streets - actually, it’s Winston Churchill who said it:
“Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has not heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains.”
My opinion is my own. If you think it was a great thing for our country, good for you, but I don’t, and please don’t tell me what to think. Your station in academia does not give you the right to do that.
As far as the last 8 years go, I again think that history is going to vindicate Bush on a number of levels. There are places it won’t, but there are places that it will. The last 8 years have not been the worst in American history. You guys can talk that way from your lofty posts in Academia, but I know better - I lived through Iraq, and Afghanistan. I lived the Bush Doctrine and I know that it is not such a horrible thing. What you guys sit and read about, I have actually done and participated in.
It’s YOUR OPINION that the last 8 years have categorically sucked. YOUR OPINION.
Those kids just don’t know any better. They’re about to learn the hard way that idealism is energy wasted, optimism is a bad way of handling an emergency, and lofty rhetoric means nothing when someone has a gun to your head and your back against a wall.
November 5th, 2008 at 11:15 am
And yeah, Sheri -
I do think it could (and will be) worse than the last 8 years. Far worse.
Remember - it’s your OPINION that the last 8 years were so horrible. For me, they weren’t. For me, the horror was the Clinton years, watching the military that I was part of systematically dismantled and left in a demoralized and utterly unprepared state. It was a living nightmare.
Obama will be all of that and more - so MY OPINION is that YES it WILL be WORSE than the LAST 8 YEARS.
You people talk like things are so awful here. Don’t you ever travel? For God’s sake, I’ve been to Bosnia. I’ve been to the Sinai Peninsula. I’ve been to Iraq, to Afghanistan, to Kuwait and Saudi. You act as if these years under Bush were SO BAD, as if NOTHING could possibly be worse.
You need to travel more and see how the rest of the world lives - under the boots of tyrants. It will give you some perspective.
I’m presuming from your name that you’re female. I’ve been to countries that wouldn’t let you have a job and would make you cover your head, and only go out with a male family member.
And you think things here are SO BAD?!
Get some perspective. Bush was not a tyrant. Slobodan Milosevic, he was a tyrant. General Aidid, he was a tyrant. Saddam Hussein, he was a tyrant.
You know nothing of tryanny. You’ve never faced it. You know nothing of oppression; you’ve never seen it. If you had, you’d realize that even under your hated George W. Bush you had far more freedom than virtually anyone anywhere in the rest of the world.
About the last 8 years - some bad decisions were made, and some good ones were, as well.
I think Obama will make far worse decisions that George W. Bush.
That’s what I think, and if you disagree, disagree. But don’t tell me what to think.
November 5th, 2008 at 11:49 am
You are free to think what you like, Capt. D. I gave 20% of my life defending this country so that you could do that. However, this is a great day for this country, and we are loving it and no amount of post-election frustration will dampen that.
November 5th, 2008 at 11:52 am
When, precisely, have I done that? Best I can tell I present a forum where you are free to speak your mind and have engaged you over time on these issues and have never told you what to think and even if I did attempt to do so, it would hardly matter.
All I have done back is express my own opinion. How is disagreeing with you not allowing you to have your own opinion? It is a curious position to take.
November 5th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
I disagree that it is a great day. I think it is not.
November 5th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Oh, and another thing - 20% of your life - I gave more than that. And I served all of it in the airborne infantry and special forces communities of the U.S. Army. I was wounded in action three times. I was awareded the silver star for gallantry twice.
So don’t tell me about how YOU defended MY freedom. At the very best, you can say that you served alongside me, IF you served in Iraq, Afghanistan, or Kosovo - but you didn’t defend anything FOR me. I did the defending myself. I was on the tip of the spear for my entire career, and I’ve got the scars to prove it. Show me YOUR purple hearts and I’ll think you an equal.
November 5th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
Capt D, I will be perfectly honest at this point: After reading many of your replies I cannot take anything you say seriously. No one is attacking you and you have no reason to respond this way, and frankly I do not see the logic to continue to reply to a site that obviously upsets you to such a degree. You said that Dr. Taylor should ban you if he “disagrees” with you. You have the power to stop feeding your anger by going to another site, or starting your own.
November 5th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
I don’t care if you don’t take my replies seriously. That’s your choice.
It is a sad state of affairs if one has to start their own site simply because they have a disagreement.
I disagree with you that Barack Obama will be good for America. What you are saying is that my position is not welcome here, is not valid, and that I should go off and start a site where people who think “like I do” can go.
That is exactly what is wrong with this country, more than anything else; we cluster into groups, polarized by figures like Barack Obama, and either we fit or we don’t, we’re in or we’re out, we’re left or we’re right and there is no room anywhere for disagreement. The blogosphere exists for people to preach to their choirs.
I’m sorry, but I don’t like that view, I refuse to take that view, and if you want to categorically blow off all of my comments that’s your choice. But DON’T tell me I should go off an start my own site and worsen this polarization.
Just because I don’t think Obama will be a good thing for America doesn’t mean I should be ignored, silenced, or sent elsewhere - and shame on you for saying so.