Obama wins on message of change

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WASHINGTON, November 05 (Agencies): Barack Obama won the US presidency and made history on a steady message of bringing change to a country that has been hungering for it.
The first black to be elected U.S. president, Obama ran a nearly flawless campaign and proved to be a cool customer under fire on the campaign trail and during three head-to-head debates with defeated Republican John McCain.
"It's been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America," Obama told cheering supporters in Chicago after his victory.
America voted in record numbers, standing in lines that snaked around blocks and in some places in pouring rain. Voters who queued up Tuesday and the millions who balloted early propelled 2008 to the highest turnout in generations, maybe a century.
Preliminary projections based on 83 per cent of the country's precincts tallied, indicate that more than 131 million Americans will have voted this year, easily outdistancing 2004's 122.3 million, which had been the highest grand total of voters before.
That puts the 2008 turnout rate of eligible voters hovering around 64 per cent, experts said.
That's the best in at least 44 years, maybe more depending on who is doing the counting and how they count.
Obama ran for president during the best possible conditions for a politician running against the incumbent party -- a country saddled with two wars and teetering on the brink of a recession, including a Wall Street meltdown that amounted to an October surprise.
"He won because he was the Democratic nominee in a year that was just perfect for Democrats," said Larry Sabato, a political science professor at the University of Virginia.
President George W. Bush was not on the ballot but it sure seemed like it.
Obama linked McCain to Bush at every turn, even though the two Republicans are not particularly fond of each other and McCain had broken with Bush on several important issues.
It did not matter. Obama had only to keep bringing up the fact that the Arizona senator had voted with Bush 90 per cent of the time.
Obama was able to straddle the middle ground, managing to escape McCain's attacks on his liberal voting record as a senator from Illinois, and raised vast sums of money for television advertisements that essentially turned him into an iconic figure.
"He ran a perfect, nearly gaffe-free campaign and he stayed on an absolutely pitch-perfect message," said Democratic strategist Liz Chadderdon.
Meanwhile, the Democratic congressional majority grew broader and more muscular in Tuesday's historic elections, with new members ousting Republicans in the House and Senate and a team of their own heading to the White House.
Senate Democrats edged closer to a supermajority by ousting Republicans in North Carolina and New Hampshire and adding three seats held by retiring GOP incumbents to a fragile 51-49 majority in the Senate.
In the House, Democrats captured GOP-held seats in the Northeast, South and West, adding at least 15 seats to the 30 they took from Republicans in 2006. With fewer than a dozen races still undecided, they were on a path to pick up as many as 20 seats. Going into Tuesday's election, Democrats controlled the House 235-199 with one vacancy.
"Tonight, the American people have called for a new direction. They have called for change in America," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said.
President Bush's popularity rating under 30 per cent was a heavy drag on Republican Party presidential candidate McCain. Despite an improving security picture in Bush's Iraq war and a rapid response by the Bush administration to the financial crisis, Americans were ready to turn the page.
"Obama just pounded on this theme that we just can't afford four more years," said Democratic strategist Jim Duffy. "I think Bush was a huge millstone."
McCain, 72, ran about as well as a Republican could have in a toxic environment for his party. He won large segments of the country but fell short in the battleground states that were decisive.
"We fought as hard as we could and though we fell short, the failure is mine, not yours," McCain told supporters at a Phoenix hotel. "I wish the outcome was different, my friends. The road was a difficult one from the outset."
McCain was riding a lead in the national polls in September until Wall Street began falling apart, exposing the weakness of the economy. His response was not as surefooted as Obama's, and it cost him.
"The environment was loaded against him, and even with the toxic environment for Republicans, he made it very close until the financial meltdown. That's what finally created the daylight between the two candidates that lasted until Election Day," said Republican pollster Whit Ayres.
Some will question whether McCain should have chosen the inexperienced Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate.
The news media's vetting of Palin drew negative headlines for weeks and some conservatives were sharply critical of McCain's selection of her over other more experienced Republican leaders.
McCain ignored the critics.
In his concession speech in Phoenix, he called Palin "one of the best campaigners I've ever seen," and an "impressive new voice in our party for reform" -- a statement likely to be fodder for speculation about the next presidential election -- in 2012.