Barack Obama was elected the nation's first black
president today in a historic triumph that overcame racial barriers as
old as America itself.The son of
a black father from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas, the
Democratic senator from Illinois sealed his victory by defeating
Republican Sen John McCain in a string of wins in hard-fought
battleground states — Ohio, Florida, Virginia and Iowa.
A huge crowd in Grant Park in Chicago erupted in jubilation at the news of Obama's victory. Some wept.
McCain
called his former rival to concede defeat — and the end of his own
10-year quest for the White House. "The American people have spoken,
and spoken clearly," McCain told disappointed supporters in Arizona.
Obama
and his running mate, Sen Joseph Biden of Delaware, will take their
oaths of office as president and vice president on Jan 20, 2009.
As
the 44th president, Obama will move into the Oval Office as leader of a
country that is almost certainly in recession, and fighting two long
wars, one in Iraq and the other in Afghanistan.
The popular vote was close, but not the count in the Electoral College, where it mattered most.
There, Obama's audacious decision to contest McCain in states that hadn't gone Democratic in years paid rich dividends.
Obama
has said his first order of presidential business will be to tackle the
economy. He has also pledged to withdraw most US combat troops from
Iraq within 16 months.
Fellow
Democrats rode his coattails to larger majorities in both houses of
Congress. They defeated incumbent Republicans and won open seats by
turn.
The 47-year-old
Illinois senator was little known just four years ago. A widely praised
speech at the Democratic National Convention, delivered when he was
merely a candidate for the Senate, changed that.
Overnight
he became a sought-after surrogate campaigner, and he had scarcely
settled into his Senate seat when he began preparing for his run for
the White House.
A survey of
voters leaving polling places on Tuesday showed the economy was by far
the top Election Day issue. Six in 10 voters said so, and none of the
other top issues — energy, Iraq, terrorism and health care — was picked
by more than one in 10.
"May God bless whoever wins tonight," President Bush told dinner guests at the White House, where his tenure runs out on Jan 20.
The Democratic leaders of Congress celebrated in Washington.
"It is not a mandate for a party or ideology but a mandate for change," said Senate Majority leader Harry reid of Nevada.
Speaker
Nancy Pelosi of California said, "Tonight the American people have
called for a new direction. They have called for change in America."