Election Day Liveblogs, Reaction and Analysis from HuffPost Bloggers
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Reaction to Barack Obama's victory in the 2008 presidential election:
Harry Shearer: How to Come Down From Euphoria:
President-Elect Obama is clearly a very smart guy and a very good politician. Unlike the last Dem with those credentials, he's also exceedingly disciplined. Those qualities will come up against a couple of very major problems. READ MORE
Nora Ephron: Exhale:
So we held our breath for twenty-two months, twenty-two months of an election that everyone claimed would bore us witless. The exact opposite turned out to be true: it was riveting. READ MORE
Trey Ellis: History:
I love history and had often whined that I wasn't lucky enough to have lived during a more exciting age: I could have been a Tuskegee Airman, Buffalo Soldier, or beatnik. But last night history came to me. READ MORE
Drew Westen: Looking Forward: What Comes After the New Deal and the Raw Deal?:
The task facing President-elect Obama is to articulate the role of government in the 21st century just as FDR articulated its role in the 20th. READ MORE
Cecile Richards: A Winning Night for Women:
It is hard to overstate the landslide victory for women last night. For too long, our health and rights have been used as a political battering ram. READ MORE
David Rees: What To Do When It Finally Hits You And Your Mind Explodes: A Safety Guide:
DO NOT OPERATE HEAVY MACHINERY. I realize this may further damage our economy, but I don't want to be around some forklift operator who suddenly realizes what the heck happened last night. READ MORE
Russell Simmons: The Vision of the Hip-Hop Generation:
The election of Barack Obama, a resounding progressive voice, is a clear reflection of hip-hop politics, and a beautiful testament to the American collective consciousness that is flowering. READ MORE
Nathan Gardels: Global Reactions to Obama Victory from Moscow to Beijing to Muslim World:
Here are some comments I gathered on what Obama's victory means for America's image in the world, from thinkers such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Tariq Ramadan, and Garry Kasparov. READ MORE
Mitchell Bard: Yes We Did! But There Is a Lot More to Do:
Obama has not hit a home run; he has merely earned the right to step into the batter's box. READ MORE
Lincoln Mitchell: Yes We Did!:
Forget about the Bradley effect, Republican voter suppression tactics and October surprises. Obama won a clear and resounding victory last night. READ MORE
David A. Andelman: Already the World Asks Obama: Where's the Beef?:
Recession and jobs, Iraq and Palestine, Russia and Georgia, Iran and North Korea -- all this a reminder of just how far America's president-elect still needs to go. READ MORE
Bruce Tenenbaum: America Grows Up:
I don't own rose-colored glasses. Obama's victory doesn't mean all is once again right with the world. But for now we become one nation again. Today we reject race as a deciding factor. READ MORE
Arianna Huffington: Obama Wins: Why All Americans Have a Reason to Celebrate:
Tonight the GOP finds itself facing the tar pit of irrevelency. After eight years of Rove, Cheney and Bush bringing the standard of American politics to a new low, Republicans are confronted with the possibility of spending the next eight being crushed by a Democratic majority in Congress and an overwhelmingly popular Democratic president. They way I see it, the GOP has two paths it can take. One leads to a sustainable future, the other will land them somewhere between Neve Cambell's career and stacks of left over "Cool Runnings" VHS tapes. READ MORE
Gary Hart: The Sixth Principle:
Endless analysis in coming months will focus on the meanings of this election, and the interpretations will be as varied as the analysts' many biases. For there is something here for everyone. This was a cyclical referendum with the pendulum bound to swing back to Democrats. The president-elect represents a new, post-Clinton, beyond centrism, post-racial, new politics, internet-driven phenomenon. The nation is fed up with neoconservative imperialists, radical fundamentalists, and failed supply-siders. And so on. READ MORE
Jamie Lee Curtis: Thank You Barack Obama:
Thank you for reminding us that this next period of time will be hard. That there are no easy answers. That there will be sacrifice. There will be blood. There will be sweat. There will be tears. Thank you for marrying Michelle Obama and being the kind of father you are to your daughters. Thank you for your grace. Thank you for your leadership. READ MORE
Cory Booker: A Time For Change: A New Narrative for America and her Cities:
the election of Barack Obama now offers a momentous opportunity for us to reclaim the American narrative that we most admire. We can reclaim our standing in the world and begin the necessary work to rebuild our economy and create greater opportunity for all citizens. READ MORE
Tom Matzzie: What Obama's Win Means:
Lincoln's reelection meant the union was worth fighting for. Franklin Roosevelt's was a rejection of Hoover's conservatism. Kennedy marked a new era in politics. Reagan marked the ascendancy of the conservative movement. But what does the election of Barack Obama mean? READ MORE
Paul Finkelman: The First President Who is Black:
An Obama presidency will not end racism. It may in fact lead to some increase in overt racist talk, as those who don't like his policies will blame them on race. But in other ways, an Obama presidency will change the nature of race relations. Whites who said they would never vote for a black man, in the end did just that. READ MORE
Sheryl Crow: A New America:
As we watch the 70,000 euphoric Obama supporters in Grant Park in Chicago waiting for the appearance of our future president, our first black president, but more importantly, our deeply inspired and conscious leader, it is my hope that we will heed his call to find forgiveness, acceptance, and compassion for each other and that we will bless this nation and ourselves by putting the divisiveness that has been nurtured throughout this campaign and the past eight years to once again become a nation of one people under God indivisible. Time to celebrate America at her very best. READ MORE
Hooman Majd: Ya Hussein!:
Tonight, as Americans have apparently decided they would prefer Senator Obama to Senator McCain as their next president, and as the "military-industrial complex" or whatever cabal of special interests (if they exist or have the power, as conspiracy theorists around the world claim) have been either unable or unwilling to prevent Americans from making that choice, there is a sigh of relief, and disbelief, in many quarters in the Middle East, including in Iran. READ MORE
Robert J. Elisberg: "Politics of Change" Just Changed More Than You Think:
But know that Barack Obama did not run his campaign on a "Southern Strategy," or a strategy that attempted to divide the nation, in order to win. He ran a 50 state strategy. He ran a campaign that began with a speech that proclaimed, "We aren't Red States. We aren't Blue States. We are the United States of America." And that is how he won. And that is the politics of change. READ MORE
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: The Real America!:
Barack Obama's victory tonight has re-defined for the whole world the meaning of the word "America." The world will forever have a different view of who we are. We now have a new face. READ MORE
Amb. Marc Ginsberg: Return of the Jedi:
I imagine how my ex-boss, an ailing Ted Kennedy must feel tonight, knowing that many, many months ago he exclaimed to the nation that he could feel change in the air. READ MORE
Election Day Liveblogs:
Click on any liveblogger's name below to quickly open their liveblog.
More bloggers weigh in:
E. A. Hanks: G.O.P. R.I.P.?:
Tonight the GOP finds itself facing the tar pit of irrevelency. After eight years of Rove, Cheney and Bush bringing the standard of American politics to a new low, Republicans are confronted with the possibility of spending the next eight being crushed by a Democratic majority in Congress and an overwhelmingly popular Democratic president. They way I see it, the GOP has two paths it can take. One leads to a sustainable future, the other will land them somewhere between Neve Cambell's career and stacks of left over "Cool Runnings" VHS tapes. READ MORE
Robert L. Borosage: Amazing Grace: Hallelujah and Get to Work:
If all goes as predicted tonight, Americans will wake tomorrow to a new dawn, a new possibility. You don't have to drink the kool aid to appreciate how extraordinary this is. We will look at one another with new eyes. We are a better, bigger, more generous, more optimistic people than many -- particularly the Rove's acolytes in the McCain campaign -- assumed.READ MORE
Paul Abrams: An Obama Victory Will Itself Reassert US Leadership: First Person of Color to Govern Any Country with a White Majority, Ever:
If Barack Obama wins today, the world knows that he will be the first African-American president. In a country borne with the scourge of slavery, that struggled through a 100 years of nullification and interposition after the legal basis of slavery had been eliminated, the election of an African-American man to the presidency is an achievement for which no description is hyperbole: earthquake, transformational, monumental, whatever your pleasure.READ MORE
Andrei Cherny: The Wait Is Over:
If we do win, the victory will be historic not only for the margin but for the meaning. As Bill Clinton rightly pointed out this morning, Obama's election is not just about one man but about a fundamental philosophical shift. In this decade, for the first time since the 1920's, the Republicans controlled all the levers of power in Washington. They were able to put into place their big ideas - supply-side tax cuts, reckless deregulation, and neo-conservative foreign policy - exactly as they wanted to. The results from the economy to Katrina to Iraq are plain to see. READ MORE
Richard Schiff: Wondering What Will Be:
We are on the verge of an historical, seismic shift here in America. I write this as we citizens begin lining up by rights, today, to affect outcomes of world events not yet ready to unfold. The pundits are in full form figuring the scenarios and measuring their likelihood. People stop me on the street and ask me what it looks like. They ask me what will be. There is little debate left in our lungs--we are out of breath, exhausted and exhilarated and wondering what will be. READ MORE
Eugene Jarecki: An Ode to Tomorrow:
Though today is yet unknowable, let us for a moment imagine that when we wake tomorrow it will be a new day in America. Let us appreciate the poetry that once upon a time, a one-term congressman from Illinois became President of the United States and freed four million African slaves and, 145 years later, an African American first-term senator from Illinois - borne not of the rapacious legacy of that compulsory migration but rather of a voluntary choice by two adults - should become President of that same land. READ MORE
Peter Daou: From This Democrat, Thank You:
As a Democrat who left one career behind in 2001 and made politics my new one after Bush was elected, who vowed to fight every wrong-headed policy foisted on America by the Bush administration, I feel a profound debt of gratitude to Sen. Obama and his family, his campaign, his tireless and devoted staff, and his volunteers and supporters across the country. READ MORE
Simon Jenkins: Obama Stock Is Overpriced; Sell, Sell:
Sell Obamas now. They are overpriced and the forward market has gone crazy. If he becomes president in two days, the bubble will burst, I guess in the spring of next year. READ MORE
Chris Kelly: One Last Huge Economic Argument For Obama About Which I'm Kidding Zero:
You can change the world with your vote today. Not somewhere down the line, but the second it's counted. You can even change the world -- as long as you vote for Barack Obama -- whether he wins or not. That's how important your vote is. READ MORE
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First Posted: 11- 4-08 08:14 AM | Updated: 12- 5-08 05:12 AM