Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Your Morning News: 11.05.08

Posted by Josh in Barack Obama, Democrats, Election 2008, Ezra Klein, john mccain, Matt Yglesias, Paul KRugman, rahm emanuel, The Fix, Tom Friedman, Your Morning News

Democrat Barack Hussein Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States on Tuesday, becoming the first African American to win the post and completing a meteoric rise from state senator to the White House. The Illinois Senator rode a message of change and an inspirational exhortation of hope to a victory over Senator John McCain of Arizona. Thought votes are still being counted, Senator Obama currently has 52% of the popular vote and 349 electoral votes. Obama gave his acceptance speech in front of 200,000 people in Chicago’s Grant Park.

This is the biggest news story in the world today, you can take your pick as to which newspaper coverage of the election you want to read. Or, you can do what I did and just go here and cry for a while. All of the coverage focuses on the historic nature of the election, both what it means for race in America and how President-elect Obama (there goes the crying again) is going to face a daunting set of challenges.

What do your favorite writers think?

• Tom Friedman calls this election the true end of the Civil War.
• Matt Yglesias is trying to insist that this is really a victory for a progressive agenda.
• Paul Krugman calls this an end to the Monster Years of American politics.
• Ezra Klein calls it the end of the 9/11 era.

For Senate News and more Crass Political Concerns, see after the jump.

So far the Democrats have won five senate seats, with four still too close to call. They also picked up 13 house seats, with 30 still undecided. True political junkies are going to be watching Minnesota, Alaska, Oregon, and Georgia very closely this morning. Additionally, several states haven’t been called in the Presidential race yet, so information will be updating throughout the day. Check back here for results as they come in and sound smart by telling everyone how important the makeup of the Senate and the House will be for enacting President-elect Obama’s agenda.

The votes aren’t even counted and thousands of words are already being written about why Obama won. Any election has hundreds of factors influencing it, but a good place to start if you are trying to figure it out yourself would be this article from Politico. If that is too long, you can just read this blog post from Paul Krugman and repeat that.

2.0somethings favorite The Fix has a good rundown of some winners and losers of this election (hint: not just Obama and McCain).

Word is already beginning to leak about who will be in Obama’s inner circle. Several sources are saying that the lead candidate for Chief of Staff is Illinois Congressman Rahm Emanuel.

Finally, some are skipping the short-term give and take and beginning to think long term. What does Obama need to do and what is next for conservatism. Expect to see LOTS of these kinds of articles by the end of the week.

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