November 4, 2008: Barack Obama Is Elected President

November 4, 2008: History is made when America elects a black man as its President. Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, the Democratic nominee, wins 69.5 million votes. At the times, it was the highest popular vote total in the history of American Presidential elections. Senator John McCain of Arizona, the Republican nominee, wins 59.9 million votes.

Popular vote percentages: Obama 52.9, McCain 45.7. States: Obama 28, McCain 22. Electoral Votes: Obama 365, McCain 173. 

There were 9 States that George W. Bush had won in 2004 that Obama moved to the Democratic column in 2008: Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada.

McCain had been hoping that foreign policy, his area of expertise, and particularly the Iraq War, would help him win. It didn't. Unlike the outgoing President, George W. Bush, who seemed at times as if he didn't want to win the war; he only wanted to have the war, to use as a club over people's perceived lack of patriotism, McCain thought the war should come to an end. But he thought America should end the war by winning it. He didn't say how he would do it, only that he would.

As they had already shown in 2006, taking control of both houses of Congress away from the Republicans and giving it to the Democrats, the voters wanted to end the war sooner rather than later, and didn't trust McCain to do that. They trusted Obama, who, unlike Hillary, had never supported it. McCain's suggestion that he would attack Iran next further turned voters off. On December 18, 2011, President Obama withdrew the last U.S. combat troops.

McCain counted on Iraq, and foreign policy in general, to be his edge against Obama. But Obama was very knowledgeable on the subject, thought not as experienced in office. And each man had his stance on the issue magnified by his Vice Presidential nominee.

Obama, then 47 years old and only in the U.S. Senate for 4 years, chose Senator Joe Biden of Delaware, 66 and a Senator for 36 years. Biden had been Chairman on Senate Foreign Relations. McCain, 72, chose Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska, 44, who had been in office for only a year and a half, and before that had been a small-town Mayor.

Beyond also being a military hawk, Palin's idea of "foreign policy experience" was that you could see Russia from Alaska. (On a clear day, from a particular land point, this is true. She never actually said, "I can see Russia from my house!" Yet another thing a politician supposedly said, but actually didn't.)

Palin's foreign policy views did not hurt McCain. But they did magnify how much his foreign policy views were already hurting him. She was a symptom, not the disease.

What really decided the election, as it does more often than not, is the economy. Already in recession for over a year, it got worse, and crashed in September. As Obama kept saying, "John McCain's not a bad guy. He just doesn't get it." He really didn't: As a Navy Admiral's son, a Naval Academy Midshipman, a Naval officer, a Congressman and a Senator, for most of his life, he had had his needs taken care of by the federal government. His longest period of not having that be true was the 5 1/2 years that he was a prisoner of war in North Vietnam.

He had gambled that his amazing life story would be his key to victory. And in a different election -- say, his 1st campaign for President, in 2000, when he lost the Republican nomination to Bush, but could have compared himself very well to Al Gore -- it might have been. 

Instead, it was the lives of people struggling to pay their expenses, something he never understood, that was the key to his defeat. Obama had lived such a life, so he did understand it.

While Palin's flakiness and extremism turned off a lot of moderates, it (and her looks -- she was a former beauty pageant winner) turned on a lot of conservatives (including McCain). We'll never know how many people, who didn't quite trust McCain, she brought back into the fold, but it may have canceled out the people she lost by being, well, Sarah Palin. McCain could have chosen any of several potential Vice Presidents, every bit as conservative as Palin, but with more experience and more gravitas, and it wouldn't have made much difference.

Obama ran a great campaign. The opposition called him a "narcissist" -- which now seems completely ludicrous, in light of who succeeded him. But he never once said, "I, alone, can fix it." Or, "Nobody does (or knows) (whatever the subject in question is) better than me." Instead, his motto was, "Yes, we can!" We, not I.

McCain was the nominee of the incumbent party. There was no way to defend the traditional Republican approach to the economy: Cutting taxes on the rich and keeping wages low had helped to bring the crash on, and the people weren't buying it. They knew that the Republicans, the party of conservative businessmen, couldn't be trusted to fix an economy that was wrecked by conservative businessmen. Like Bush: He, not Palin, and not even McCain himself, was the Republican who caused McCain to lose. Indeed, Bush became the 1st incumbent President in 40 years, since Lyndon Johnson, who did not attend his own Party's Convention, for fear it would hurt their chances.

With the closing of the polls in the Pacific Coast States, at 8:00 PM their time, 11:00 Eastern, Obama crossed the threshold of 270 Electoral Votes. That moment, proving that the American people had chosen him, may have been America's greatest moment. It wasn't just what we were turning our backs on, it was what we were accepting: As the man himself put it, "the audacity of hope." For the record, McCain began his concession speech to his supporters, a rather gracious one, at 11:17.

The Democrats already held both houses of Congress. They gained 21 seats in the House of Representatives, and 8 seats in the Senate. Among the new Democrats elected: Al Franken of Minnesota, formerly a comedian and writer for Saturday Night Live; Mark Begich of Alaska, whose father Nick had been in Congress, and died in a plane crash late in the 1972 campaign; Mark Udall of Colorado, son of Representative Mo Udall of Arizona; Mark's cousin, Tom Udall of New Mexico, son of Representative and Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall, also of Arizona; Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, a former Governor who defeated John E. Sununu, son of a Governor and brother of another; Kay Hagan of North Carolina, who defeated Elizabeth Dole, former Secretary of Transportation and wife of longtime Senator from Kansas and 3-time Presidential candidate Bob Dole; and former Governor Mark Warner of Virginia.

Times had changed a great deal: I had heard someone say on TV after this election that Obama got about the same percentage of the white vote that Michael Dukakis had gotten in 1988, 20 years earlier, but Dukakis had only won 111 Electoral Votes, while Obama won 365. This was due to the growth of the Hispanic vote, which the Democrats had solidly taken, especially after California and other Western States passed anti-immigrant initiatives in the 1990s; while the white vote shrank, and the black vote remained largely the same.

As they usually do with the winner of the Presidential election, Time magazine named Obama its Person of the Year for 2008.

Since Obama was elected President, the changes have been huge. He stabilized the economy. He saved the auto industry. He ended the Iraq War. And, having made finding and killing Osama bin Laden a priority, under his leadership, the CIA found bin Laden, and U.S. Navy's Seal Team Six killed him.

Obama got the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. "Obamacare," passed into law, bringing America closer to full health insurance coverage than ever before. He put Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan on the U.S. Supreme Court. And, thanks in part to those 2 Justices, not only was Obamacare upheld as constitutional, but same-sex marriage became legal throughout America.

Right-wingers insisted that he was an illegitimate President, because he wasn't born in America. Right before the mission to kill bin Laden, he got the State of Hawaii to release the official version of his birth certificate. He gloated about this at the 2011 White House Correspondents' Dinner. In the audience was the leader of the movement to expose Obama as foreign-born, real estate mogul Donald Trump. His movement exposed as bigoted and stupid, Trump was humiliated before the entire country.

Maybe that was Obama's biggest mistake, because Trump was so determined to avenge this humiliation that he ran for President himself. Not in 2012, because he was too much of a coward to run against Obama himself. But in 2016, when his opponent was a woman, Hillary Clinton. Who was still stronger, more experienced, and more successful than he was, and beat him by nearly 3 million votes. But, thanks to Russian operatives, the Electoral College went Trump's way. That happened once: It didn't happen again, because the voters turned to Biden in 2020, hoping to bring back the Obama performance.

In spite of the recency of his Administration, there are already schools named for Obama in the States of California, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey (including a charter high school in Plainfield), New York's Long Island, Ohio, a high school in Pennsylvania's Pittsburgh, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin. His Presidential Library and Museum is planned for Hyde Park on Chicago's South Side, not far from his official residence. Interstate 55 from the southern suburbs of Chicago through Pontiac, Illinois is named the Barack Obama Presidential Expressway.

Hampton University, Hampton, Virginia

Obama is the only President with any connection to Hawaii, although he represented Illinois in politics.

On Saturday Night Live, he was played by Fred Armisen (despite being white) during his 1st term. Jay Pharoah (black) played him in the 2nd term. Keegan-Michael Key played him on MADtv in the 2008-09 season, and then occasionally appeared alongside the real Obama in the comedic role of "Obama's Anger Translator." In 2012, Key joined with Jordan Peele for the TV variety series Key and Peele, but it was Peele who played Obama there. Lovell Adams-Gray played a young Obama on DC's Legends of Tomorrow in 2018.

In a 2011 episode of the YouTube series Epic Rap Battles of History, YouTuber Lisa Nova played Palin, against "Nice" Peter Shukoff as Lady Gaga, with "Epic" Lloyd Ahlquist making a brief cameo as McCain. This was the 1st time a guest star appeared in the series, the 1st time a female character was used, and the 1st time an actor played a character of the opposite gender. In 2012, Ahlquist played Mitt Romney, against Iman Crosson, a.k.a. Alphacat, playing Obama.

McCain surpassed Senator Barry Goldwater, the 1964 Republican nominee, as the politician from Arizona who came the closest to becoming President, although, having been born in the U.S. Panama Canal Zone, he did not replace Goldwater as the Arizona native who has come the closest. Palin has thus come the closest of any politician born in Idaho, or representing Alaska.

President Pro Tempore of the Senate remains the highest office achieved by a native of Arizona, Carl Hayden, from 1957 to 1969; or Alaska, Ted Stevens, 2003 to 2007. The highest-ranking Arizona native is Stewart Udall, Secretary of the Interior from 1961 to 1969; and from Alaska, Walter Hickel, who succeeded Udall, and served until 1970.

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November 4, 2008, as all modern U.S. Election Days have been, was a Tuesday. The baseball season had just ended. Football was in midweek. There were 3 NBA games played that night:

* The New Jersey Nets lost to the Phoenix Suns, 114-86 at the Izod Center at the Meadowlands.

* The Boston Celtics beat the Houston Rockets, 103-99 at the Toyota Center in Houston.

* And the Dallas Mavericks beat the San Antonio Spurs at the AT&T Center in San Antonio. (It's now named the Frost Bank Center.)

And there were 7 NHL games played:

* The New York Islanders beat the New York Rangers, 2-1 at Madison Square Garden. The game was scoreless until the 3rd period, when Nate Thompson and Richard Park scored for the Isles. Markus Naslund tallied for the Blueshirts with 1:41 left in regulation, but they couldn't get an equalizer. The New Jersey Devils were not scheduled for that night.

* The Ottawa Senators beat the Washington Capitals, 2-1 at the Canadian Tire Centre in Ottawa. Mike Fisher scored the winner with 40 seconds left in overtime. The reaction of his then-wife, country singer Carrie Underwood, is not recorded. (Yes, her married name was Carrie Fisher.)

* The Carolina Hurricanes beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 5-4 at the Air Canada Centre. (It's now named the Scotiabank Arena.) Niclas Wallin scored in overtime to win it for the 'Canes.

* The Phoenix Suns beat the Calgary Flames, 4-2 at the Saddledome in Calgary.

* The Anaheim Ducks beat their arch-rivals, the Los Angeles Kings, 1-0 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. (It's now named the Crypto.com Arena.) Chris Pronger scored the winner, 40 seconds into overtime.

* The San Jose Sharks beat the Minnesota Wild, 3-1 at the HP Pavilion in San Jose. (It's now named the SAP Center.)

* And the Vancouver Canucks beat the Nashville Predators, 4-0 at GM Place in Vancouver. (It's now named the Rogers Arena.