It's over.

After almost 2 years, the 2008 presidential election has finally ended. Last I checked Montana, Missouri and Indiana were still being counted, but by the end, the map looked more or less like this. As you can see, Obama crushed McCain, taking the crucial swing states like Ohio and Florida early on. Now the only question is precisely how many red states flipped this year, to pile it on and add insult to defeat for McCain.



Some people have asked me why I'm so into this election. As you can see from the looming global recession brought on by Bush deregulation in the US, what happens in the US effects the whole world. Too often, the US has been a rogue power, invading nations as it pleases and refusing to work with other governments on any serious global initiatives to solve world problems.

Even taking the Obama hype with a grain of salt and allowing for the inevitable compromises and dissapointments , he could change all that. The US could start co-operating with the UN again. They might join the Kyoto protocol, make a world court to catch terrorists with international co-operation between police departments, global intiatives to work toward green energy...I think we'll see a lot more of that now.

Obama's win could also mark a historical shift. Traditionally whoever holds the south takes the elections, and the Republicans have been experts at getting that vote by playing up the everyman image and playing on white fears.

But the map is changing. Immigrants have been flooding into the US, and salsa has now outstripped ketchup as the #1 condiment. Those people are beginning to find their votes and voices, and they're beginning to have political weight. More and more of the country is getting concentrated in urban areas, where people have to learn to become more tolerant of one another.

Obama could be the mark of a new political coalition, a growing rank of younger, more educated, more urbanized voters, and minorities that are tired or feeling excluded from the American dream. Obama crushed McCain even without the south. And the southern states he did win, like Virginia and North Carolina, are seeing demographic changes and more minority voters.

So maybe, just maybe,the stereotypical American president in the Bush mold could become a thing of the past. That's not to say another Republican will never get in, but they may be less able to play on the electorates' fears, and get in the same war-starting jackasses.

Maybe. No promises.

Bonus shot-

The department head was laughing when I said Obama would win 8 months ago. He said I was crazy if I thought a guy called Barack Obama would stand a chance against the GOP. Then he got carried away...and bet money. He said he was going to use the proceeds to buy a life size McCain poster to greet me each day and remind me of my stupidity.



Here he is paying up, head bowed in humiliation. I'm using the proceeds to buy an Obama poster to put where his McCain one would have gone.

Care to go double or nothing on Obama signing the Kyoto Protocol, Luke?