[LINK] "Barack Obama makes history"

[rfmcdonald]

This article is from the Toronto Star.

Barack Obama completed a journey last night that had once been unthinkable, becoming the first African-American president in U.S. history and raising hopes this nation had entered a new, post-racial era.

The rookie U.S. senator from Illinois reshaped the American electoral map in his victory over Republican John McCain and stands poised also to redefine the way the world looks at this nation.

A presidential bid first forged on the themes of hope and change – then carried home by a candidate who personified calm and cool – came 45 years after Martin Luther King told the world he had a dream.

"If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible," Obama told tens of thousands gathered on the Chicago lakefront, "who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.

"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."

[. . .]

With the world watching intently, Obama sealed his victory with easy wins in Ohio and Pennsylvania, the latter the one Democratic state in which McCain and his running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, had chosen to make their last stand in a 21-month campaign that sparked unprecedented passions in this nation.

Late victories in so-called battleground states of Virginia, coupled with the expected Obama routs in the west coast states of Hawaii, California, Oregon and Washington state put Obama over the top.

[. . .]

There were any number of milestones passed in this country on a night that will be studied by generations to come. A country thought to be centre-right had elected a man perceived to be a liberal, and a northern liberal at that, the first Democrat from north of the Mason-Dixon Line to be elected since John F. Kennedy in 1960.

He would also become the first president born outside the continental U.S., the first Hawaiian-born president and a first-term senator who as recently as four years ago was toiling in Springfield, Ill., as a state senator.

Congratulations, my fellow North Americans.