Obama won yesterday's Presidential election with, what will probably be, 364 electoral college votes to McCain's 174.
I say 'probably' because a couple of states - North Carolina and Missouri - have not officially been called yet. Obama is likely to win North Carolina; and McCain is likely to win Missouri.
In my prediction (see previous blog entry) Obama won with 325 electoral college votes to McCain's 213. I was off by three states worth 39 electoral college votes. They were: Indiana (11), Virginia (13) and North Carolina (15). All of these were so-called 'battleground' states and showed a very small, but remarkable, lead by Obama in the days before the election. I thought McCain would have won them back in the final push of his campaign where he visited these states.
Election night for me began when the first batch of polls closed and ended when the last batch of polls closed. It was at 04:00 a.m. that the race was finally called here in the U.K. for Obama, immediately after the polls in California closed and the Democratic nominee was projected to win. The race, for McCain, ended much sooner than that though. Three important states with hefty electoral college votes were among those to close early: Pennsylvania, Florida and Ohio. Obama could win the presidency with one of these (at a stretch); McCain, however, needed at least two of these go red for him to be within a chance of winning. All three, as I predicted they would, went for Obama.
The highlight of the night was watching McCain's concession speech and Obama's victory speech. Both speeches are being compared very favourably with the best of those given in previous presidential elections. McCain seemed to have accepted defeat very well. Obama was more cautious - he didn't want to gloat and he wanted to be quick to push the success away from himself and into the hands of the American electorate.
It was a night of democracy and powerful oratory in action and it was just beautiful to watch.
The Blanket Fort
13 hours ago
2 comments:
Mc Cain's acceptance speech was very good, you could clearly see that he was upset when the crowd started to Boo, he did not want to look unprofessional, a very gracious defeat in my opinion.
Hi Lost,
You mean his concession speech?! I guess you could call in acceptance speech too but he's accepting defeat!
I also thought it was a very gracious speech. He sounded earnest, humble and grateful for being a contender for the Presidency. He could have usefully added those qualities whilst he was campaigning and the race could have gotten more closer.
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