Celebrating Obama Imagine A Great Election considers the election of Barack Obama as president of the United States to be an historic event worthy of much celebration. Go to My Mixed-Race Family for a unique perspective on this election from Imagine A Great Election contributor, Karen DeGroot Carter. Additional personal perspectives will be featured in Essays on Obama in the near future.
We Imagined A Great Election. We have had just that, a great election. In a time when politicians and their strategists plan the narrowest of roads to victory, Barack Obama stepped forward and led this nation upwards on the broadest road to unity. President-Elect Obama is the first Democrat since President Carter to win a majority of the popular vote, 52% to 46%.
Go hereto read returns and analysis of the significant political shift we have just witnessed. November 5, 2008
Imagine A Great Election projects that Barack Obama will indeed be the 44th President of the United States Tuesday, November 4, 2008, 8 p.m. MST
A CHOICE, NOT AN ECHO
Imagine A Great Election endorses Barack Obama for President of the United States because he offers A Choice, Not an Echo.
That was the campaign slogan of Barry Goldwater, a Republican from Arizona, in 1964 when he ran against Lyndon Johnson. That idea made sense then and it makes sense now.
In the closing hours of the campaign for president of the United States, Barack Obama continues to press his case on critical issues which concern Americans. Obama offers us choice based on his positions on:
• A war on two fronts and the resultant enormous human and financial burden on the American people.
• The unconscionable cost of health care to Americans.
Meanwhile, John McCain has increased his personal attacks on Obama’s patriotism. McCain offers us an echo of the campaign strategies of George Bush and Karl Rove aimed at dividing Americans. That strategy is to create fear in voters based on lies about the other candidate. But then McCain already knows about that strategy. He made his deal with the devil when he hired as his campaign’s Chief Operating Officer Steve Schmidt, an associate of Karl Rove’s and a devotee of Bush/Rove’s politics of divisiveness.
In 2004, Senator McCain criticized the Bush/Rove campaign for lying about John Kerry’s record of service to our country. In July of 2008, Candidate McCain hired the very same people, including Schmidt, to execute the very same politics of divisive personal attacks on his behalf. It seems that McCain has decided he wants to win this election at any cost to his reputation and, more importantly, to the American public. He wants to follow the Bush/Rove approach to win 270 electoral votes and not the hearts and minds of Americans. He wants to focus on what divides us, not what unites us. McCain is following Bush, who lost the popular vote in 2000 and went to court to stop Florida from counting ballots.
McCain/Bush Republicans across the country are attempting to repress voting, not encourage it. We know not all Republicans share this narrow view of elections. We know Ronald Reagan never had to go to court to stop ballots from being counted in order to win by sizeable margins.
Ronald Reagan was referred to as the great communicator. Barack Obama has been praised as an eloquent and inspiring speaker. It seems they have more in common than their rhetorical skills. Both men succeeded by using their talents to inspire hope in all who would listen. Leadership is hard to describe, but it is recognizable. Disagreements between two candidates on issues confronting America and the world are to be expected. Venal personal attacks in lieu of meaningful discussion, however, are unconscionable at any time in our history.
Nothing separates Reagan and McCain more than Reagan’s appointment of the first woman to the Supreme Court, Sandra Day O’Connor, an Arizonan. Although I’ve never met Justice O’Connor, I have reason to believe she has too much respect for herself and the Constitution to have ever committed herself to ruling in a predetermined fashion. As president, John McCain would name future Supreme Court justices he’s certain would indeed rule in a predetermined fashion when confronted with a challenge to Roe v. Wade.
After the election, Imagine A Great Election will continue to monitor the president-elect and his transition team. Our analysis will be issue-driven. When the new president is sworn into office in January, we will launch ImagineAGreatCountry.com, which will analyze the same important issues and encourage readers to continue to contact their elected representatives on matters of importance. We cannot afford to wait four years to express our informed opinions on matters which impact us every day.
—Sherry Seiber
Election 2008: Tracking Electoral College Votes
The next president of the United States will be determined by which candidate wins the majority of electoral votes. There are 538 votes distributed among the 50 states and the District of Columbia. In order to win the election, a candidate must win 270 votes. If it is a tie, the election is decided by the House of Representatives.
Go here to read more about the Electoral College process.