Barack Obama Elected 44th President Of U.S.

With overwhelming support from the people, Illinois Senator Barack Obama has won the 2008 U.S. Presidential election. Obama will become the 44th President of this country. With 333 electoral votes to McCain's 156, Barack Obama has become the first African American President of the U.S.

Campaigning on the platform of “change we can believe in” Barack Obama managed to convince U.S. Voters that “eight years is enough of failed policies” under George W. Bush and the Republican party. Obama committed to making sure people saw him and not his skin color, not the fact that he was African American. But that he was president material, and that the color of his skin did not matter.

Obama reached the 270 electoral votes he needed for election at 11 p.m. EST, when NBC News projected that he would win California, Washington and Oregon. The Associated Press reported shortly after 11 p.m. that Obama’s opponent, John McCain of Arizona, had called Obama to offer his congratulations. McCain gave a very gracious and classy concession speech to his supporters. For that I am proud.

Obama, a first-term senator from Illinois, led in nearly all public opinion polls over McCain, a veteran senator from Arizona. Both campaigns launched get-out-the-vote efforts that led to long lines at polling stations in a contest that Democrats were also hoping would help them expand their majorities in both houses of Congress.

Barack Obama understood that it is a different America, and people are tired of the divisive politics of old, tactics that did nothing for building a stronger nation. States like Iowa, came out in full force in support of Barack Obama; New Mexico, states that are as diverse as the Illinois senator himself.

No one wants to say “landslide” but it is clearly a message the American people sent to the Republican party, “no more.” Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy has been realized as we elect the first African American President of this country.

Just last month, I saw Barack Obama at a rally in St Louis, in which 100,000 people flooded the Arch just to hear a message of change, something to believe in. See, what John McCain missed was what people on the campaign trail were really telling him. We care that our soldiers are fighting for freedom, but we also need to look in the mirror and heal America before we can go out in the world and tell other nations what to do.

Barack Obama listened. He listened to the 72 year old retiree who had to go back to work just to make ends meet because if he didn't he wouldn't be able to afford his monthly medications; Obama listened to the jobless folks all across America, he felt their pain. John McCain, didn't feel the pain of Americans, he counted on their fear of the unknown terrorists who are still unknown and hiding somewhere in the mountains of Afghanistan.

This country is a great country, a diverse country full of opportunities. Yet, many Americans today are not feeling that opportunity; instead they are fighting high prices at the pump, foreclosures, joblessness, and no medical insurance. In a country full of opportunities, Americans are not feeling like those opportunities belong to them.

It starts at home. It starts right here, right now. To say I am proud of the first African American President of the United States is an understatement. Why? Because Barack Obama has never called himself that. He has never said he is the “first black man...” That's because it has never been about color for Obama. It's always been about the people of this great nation. And color doesn't have anything to do with it.

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