As of this writing, Obama’s carrying 333 electoral votes to McCain’s 156; even Fox news has declared him the next president. The totals aren’t all in yet, of course, and those numbers are based in part on exit polls, but even should the GOP decide to challenge many of the results, Obama has won an electoral landslide that’s likely going to hold in spite of whatever efforts the right may make to try to invalidate it.
Democrats will now have solid majorities in both houses of congress; under other circumstances, I would call this a bad thing – too much power in the hands of one faction can become a dangerous thing. In this case, though, I’ll have to make an exception, because taking the power out of the hands of the crazy people has to override those more generic fears.
My new worry is that the Bush admin will use the fact that nobody cares about them anymore to launch a scorched earth policy to make the incumbent’s job as difficult as possible. At any other time in my life, had someone suggested this as a legitimate worry, I’d have laughed; but I with BushCo in its last throes, I can’t help but think it could happen.
Yes, it’s a historic victory in a historic election, for numerous reasons that will have been covered in a thousand other places. So I’ll just close by offering congratulations to Obama and Biden, and good luck to them in facing the massive challenged that await them after January 20th.
(Oh, and Nevada was just called for Obama, making the count 338-156.)