A Decisive but Not Overwhelming Victory for Barack Obama

Entertaining...

to listen to semi-objective conservatives such as George Will and David Brooks, who could at least admit that Republicans got their clocks cleaned in this election. Your article describes this election as "not overwhelming". Such insight! The term "whistling past the graveyard" comes to mind.

Where is the Republican diatribe about tight fiscal policy, smaller government, anti-choice, pro-gun, and anti-gay rights?

obama

I think Mr Obama has the opportunity to do many great things- i she naive liber or committed socialist? He himself describes himself as a Mutt- he's black, he's white. Just like part of America. I have seen people of all races and mostly the younger ages celbrating with him. I wonder how much these fans will cheer when he puts into actions/laws the "sacrifice " part of his Hope message. Hope and Change - what does it mean?

Socialism was over thrown throughout most of the world- why in the world would we embrace it. The truth is taxes for everyone were higher under Clinton and lower under Bush.

SO folks cash your rebate check and it will be gone in a flash. The Obamas made this a campaign of haves vs hanve nots. Obama does not celebrate thos who work hard- we do not need more entitlements.

Obama, president elect

I live in a retired residental campus; all of my friends (over age 80, living here, voted for Obama. Our daughter and husband (57-60), their children ages 28 and 25 all voted for Obama. We live in Minnesota; strong voter participation. We were all enthusiastic and happy with the results (and we are white).

Canned Ham

I have already spent too much time reading some of these comments. I feel like I did many years ago when I had one of my first jobs. It was the holiday season and the management decided to give everyone a canned ham as a bonus. We all looked at each other in wonder since the company was having cash flow problems and we were struggling to buy parts to finish projects for customers. The next holiday gift we received was a two week layoff and ultimately a permanent vacation as they never opened their doors again. That is what I think the next president is offering many people if he goes forward with his redistributionist ideals. I think after those $500 checks have been spent you will all realize you would rather have a job and not a make do job working for some bloated bureaucracy. The race issue will never go away if we as a society do not accept that there is only one race and stop talking any other way. The concept of race is a social construct and words do matter. Every time you give it credence the construct resists being iradicated.

Finally it is interesting that so many here refuse to let others speak their mind. I am always amazed at how juvenile many of the comments are and how often individuals tell the others their voices don't deserve to be heard. Is that what we can expect from the "progressive" movement? Is that what we are in for during the next administration? I don't think that is what the extra 6 million voters were asking for...

Mr. Barone does a fabulous job in parsing the details and reviewing them in an historical perspective. If you don't like that then go to another website where they tell you what you want to hear whether it has any basis in reality or not.

You've got the be kidding Chelle

Geez, we "whites" seem to be damned if we do and damned if we don't. Did it ever occur to you that most of America is NOT systemically racist? Maybe your co-workers are mostly Republican and they were disappointed that the Republican lost, since you indicate that they were happy when Bush won, NOT that a "black" man won, but a Democrat won. Did that even occur to you?

You seem to be indicating that all of "white" America should stand up a cheer everytime a "black" person accomplishes something. Do you really need that affirmation from "white" America to feel good about yourself? Are you seriously saying that it took the election to the office of the Presidency to finally give the "black" community a sense of equality?

For heaven's sake there is only one race on the planet and that's the human race. I think DNA has established that beyond a shadow of a doubt. And this idea that I should judge or affirm a man on the color of his skin and not the content of his character would have Martin Luther King Jr. rolling in his grave!

Decisive in the eyes of the elite

The Obama campaign is the most cynical campaign ever to be foisted on the American people. Marxist at his core, he and his cadre of followers (and acolytes in hte MSM) will revive the New Deal and the Great Society with all the zeal of a college sophomore who just read Newsweek for the first time and thinks he knows it all.

Criticism of the new administration will be stifled as either troglodytic or racist or both. The Republicans had better find their conservative spines and brains and get ready to challenge bad ideas with good ones in at least shiny packages, because that is the world we live in now.

This was the American Idol election, and Sanjaya won; trouble is he's got power and cover.

blah blah blah

The smart people won; people like Barone lost. Thank goodness.

Thanks, Republicans for not getting it.

This election was a rejection of rigid conservatism, divisiveness, Rovian politicking, and over-reliance on social wedge-issues. Your financial policies are disastrous, your right wing bloviators and spin-doctors are has-beens, and you still don't get it.

Barack Obama won this election by a huge margin, with a genuine, not Bushian, mandate, and turned several red states blue. He did that by running on ideas, and avoiding personal attacks. He offered a platform, campaigned by treating the voting public as though we are intelligent, thoughtful, and concerned about the future of our country, and the welfare of all it's citizens. McCain/Palin offered no solutions to the problems that beset America and Americans, they lurched from lie to lie and attack to attack like a couple of distempered dogs. John McCain seems to have thought the election was American Idol, not America's future, and he deserved to lose. Sarah Palin was incoherent when she wasn't engaged in hate-filled ranting, and seems to have thought that this WAS a beauty contest, that winking and flashing a little thigh would endear her to a public that can't afford gas, food, college, and may be facing utter financial disaster. Intelligent discourse is back. Having a brain and common sense isn't being elite, it's being patriotic. We need the best minds running our government. We need people who live in reality, not the la-la land of right wing pundits and politicians. We wanted change, we got change, and we'll continue to change this country for the better, in spite of your best efforts to sabotage the will of the people.

And by the way, the "media" wasn't in the tank for Obama, they just started to notice that McCain/Palin were empty suits, with no campaign strategy, no ideas, and, ultimately, no class.

Sore losers

What a bunch of cry baby sore losers you Republicans are. Let's face it, you guys had a chance to have what your hero Rove called a "permanent" majority, but completely BLEW IT with a weak and ineffectual president, arrogant and felonious leaders in Congress, and toadies and cronies whose blind partisanship and incompetence destroyed the State and Justice departments, FEMA and just about every other government bureaucracy.

Then, instead of nominating a strong candidate like Mitt Romney (who was able to win the governorship in the most liberal state in the nation, while maintaining his credibility as a Republican), you settled on the pathetic John McCain, whom most of your own party didn't even like. Oh, but wait...the Evangelical mob wouldn't allow a Mormon on the ticket. You'll never win an election by having to cow tow to a bunch of religious fanatics who don't represent, or understand, the rest of America.

So, if you want to win another election in the next decade or two, stop making b.s. excuses about how narrow a landslide Obama won, and start taking your party back from the religious anti-intellectualism that has destroyed it.

Fired up and happy to have my country back!

Oh, my...

As a conciliator, I will agree both with Chelle in TX and BarryD in CA. (I lived in both states during my formative years; Modesto for 8th grade and Devine, TX, for high school.)

I did not support Obama in the primary; I supported her whom I thought most qualified. But once the decision was made for "That One," I wholeheartedly and unabashedly supported him. I was even accused by some of my friends with being obsessed with him. I am ALWAYS obsessed with the Democrat, because I believe in the PRINCIPLES of the Democratic Party.

That said, don't see race everywhere. The reason I did not initially support Obama is because I read his books and listened to his speeches and perused the policy positions on his website. In my opinion, he is a lightweight compared with Hillary. But, as my campaign donations and my vote demonstrates, he is a definite improvement over the last 8 years.

I love Obama, and I've shed tears several times over that last few days when I've realized the MOMENTOUS nature of what we've just done as a country.

But let's face it: One can be against him without being a racist.