TOWLER: The Obama win

November 5, 2008 at 10:14am

First morning-after thoughts:

I spent the last hour at the office yesterday - too wired and nervous to get anything else done - surfing the web, reading Election Day comments posted by voters around the country. They were overwhelmingly from Obama supporters - joyous, worried, celebratory. And over and over, voters spoke of being proud to cast their vote. People in heavily blue states like New York and Massachusetts said they voted even though they knew that in reality, their vote didn't matter, but they wanted to be part of history.

And so they were.

And so history was made.

Obama's speech last night was beautiful and in just the right tone: grateful, not gloating. And his somber approach underscored the severity of the challenges the country faces.

I was impressed, too, with McCain's concession speech. This was the person he should have been during the campaign, showing respect rather than open disdain for Obama.

You couldn't miss the contrast between McCain's Election Night gathering and Obama's, and I don't mean just the numbers: Obama's open to the public, held in a public park in the heart of one of the nation's great cities; McCain's invitation only, held at a ritzy hotel in a wealthy Phoenix suburb. McCain's supporters angry, booing the mention of Obama. Obama's supporters cheering, sobbing, hugging one another, tears streaming down the faces of Jesse Jackson and Oprah Winfrey.

I know, I know: we react differently when we've won and when we've lost. But you also couldn't miss the contrast between McCain's heavily white crowd and Obama's wildly multi-ethnic crowd. The photographs of those 200,000 people in Chicago's Grant Park gave us a portrait of America as it is, and as it will be.

According to an NPR news report I heard this morning, Obama won in every demographic except one: people over 55. Obama is the future, McCain the past.

The Republican Party has a lot of work to do. If, as some reports have had it, Republican leaders truly believe that Sarah Palin is their future, they learned nothing in this race. For the rest of us, the Obama victory spells hope - for progress in domestic policy, in civil rights, in foreign policy, certainly. But it also spells hope not because of anything Obama himself will do, but because his majority win indicates how much the country has begun to change.

Among many pieces of good news from this election: Perhaps negative campaign doesn't work, after all. During the last two McCain-Obama debates, I was fascinated by those little bars that CNN scrolled along the bottom of the screen, showing the real-time reaction of a focus group of undecided voters. They hated the candidates' attacks on each other.

That, I figured, was a good sign.

And yesterday, Elizabeth Dole lost to a relative unknown, due in large part, apparently, to Dole's "Godless" attack ad.

Comments for "TOWLER: The Obama win" (3)

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John Cook said on Nov. 06, 2008 at 9:26am

This is in regard to Ms. Towler's urban Journal "The wrong reason to merge governments".
To allow people to see what Ms. Towler is attempting to state, the following translation is provided:

"fairness and equity" means we demand your money even if you do not live in the city. This is the leftist answer to all problems. Give us your money, we can spend it better than you can.
When the city became controlled by a far left political group and demanded control of all functions money not to advance the city but to advance political agendas you saw everyone that could leave the city. You watched us left the city by the hundreds of thousands because we did not want schools that were more interested in politics than in education (best example is the refusal to allow military recruiters in school as other recruiters are allowed even at the cost of opportunities for the students). That we left because of increasing taxes to pay for bad government not to meet the needs of people but to advance political agendas. We left because of crime, drugs and political agendas.

All you want is more money to flush down the toilet and for others to pay for your fool hardy plans. Well we have already voted on that idea. We have voted with our feet and moved out of the city. We will never allow you to have that type of control again.

It does not matter if you try to create a new tax only for those who work in but refuse to live in the city (which fell apart when the employers refused to go allow with this illegal idea) or merge governments with control being in the hands of the city. We have finished the debate. We refuse to allow the city to ruin the towns as it has ruined it self.

You want better schools, stop letting the unions and political hacks from running it like a plantation and put the education of the students first. Work on the parents to support their kids education and stop using schools as a baby siting service.

You want less crime, stop allowing the criminals to be treated as heroes. Do not expect people to chose to walk into the middle gang and drug murders.

In short when the city of Rochester starts to act like real intelligent human beings interested more in correcting problems then political agendas and hand outs, help will be given and not before. You made your bed sleep in it!

Nanci said on Nov. 06, 2008 at 10:35am

I bet you were surprised at how many "Red" states voted BLUE!!!!!

David J. Champagne said on Nov. 06, 2008 at 4:56pm

I'm glad that President elect Barrack Obama has won. Lets hope, his knowledge of the constitution, the charisma he has in bringing the people together. A true sign of a great leader. The gut wrenching feeling I've had over the past eight years is relaxing.
The need to be diligent, and vigilant in protecting and defending the United States Constitution is still the task of the people. Let's hope and believe that the perversions to the Constitution over the last eight years, will be righted. Here's to the heroes, the brave individuals who will stand up and protect all mankind from each others evils.
I believe that the Koran reads: For every man there is a purpose for which he sets up in his life. Let yours be the doing of all good deeds. Evil prevails when all good men fail to act

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