Day: November 5, 2008

first, i have friends and family who voted on both sides of the election and feel pretty strongly about it. therefore this post has nothing to do with who was right or wrong. it’s just about two things.

1) i am proud to be an american. i would have been proud to be an american if mccain had won also so it has nothing to do with obama winning … well sort of nothing. the pride comes from the fact that history was made last night with a black man being elected president and it happening without total chaos. the same would have been true if mccain and palin had been elected except it would have been a woman elected to high office. it is just amazing to think that this could happen as fast as it did. while official segregation was over before i was very cognizant of it i do still remember as a wee young thing driving through certain parts of montgomery, al and seeing obvious signs of that past struggling to survive. i also saw much of it still working in detroit, michigan when i lived there for a summer in ‘87.  i’m not sure that i honestly thought that an african-american would ever be elected to the office of president during my lifetime, nor for that matter a woman. it says a lot for american that we heal that fast. i’m not sure we are completely healed from the issue of racism (or that we ever will be) but we’ve obviously come along way.

2) the electoral map below is probably the funniest thing i have seen on explaining politics. i have not followed crikey before but i probably will start doing so now just because of that map. you have to love those auzzies.