by Zach Bigalke

Created on: November 06, 2008

The night unfolded pretty much as the pundits expected. Millions plopped down in front of their televisions and in front of computer screens as data flooded in the polls as precincts from sea to shining sea wound up their election day. Some networks began calling states and granting electoral votes to the candidates before even a single precinct reported; other media outlets took a more cautious view, remembering the debacles which hit Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004. The outlook, though, turned into inevitability quickly. Long before John McCain took the stage for his

nobly-executed concession speech in Phoenix, the result was clear - Barack Obama had been elected by a wide majority of states to become the forty-fourth president of the United States.

The precedent in presidential politics, as they say, was history...

There is much of historical impact which surrounds the election of Obama to the highest executive office in the land. The most obvious factor - that he is the first African-American to earn the honor of governing from the Oval Office - is a tribute to the work of so many who came before. For many, November 4, 2008 will be remembered as another landmark in the long struggle toward racial reconciliation in the nation. It is a climax in the integration of American politics. For those who would battle for an equal place at the table, the slave and the soldier and the civil-rights marcher, citizens all, this election serves as a flowering of the long-dormant plant of justice, finally bearing fruit once again.

But to say that race was the sole determinant in this election would be to miss a greater story in this race. Despite McCain's choice as his running mate of Alaska governor Sarah Palin, Obama took 54 percent of the female vote nationwide. He captured two-thirds of the youth vote; two-thirds of the Hispanic vote; a resounding majority of the minorities of the land. The heart of the political world, Washington DC, sang for Obama to a resounding 93 percent tune. This victory resonates deeper than race. The multitudes which cast ballots across the country helped usher in a new era for America. Many people decry that the elected leaders merely pass debts down to future generations. Now, though, the baby-boomer generation passes the torch to its children on the voices of the generation thereafter. For those future generations, their time is now.

This election serves as a mandate for a new national course. The youth, brought out in numbers not seen in decades

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