Voting in America

from: http://hoboken411.com

Like everyone in the U.S., I too watched the votes role in on Tuesday. The BBC spent all of Tuesday focused on the American elections and I was glad to be working; I was anxious and knew the results wouldn't start coming in until midnight. I can honestly say that I did not care who won. I was glad that Bush was finally leaving the White House and we could start something new.

It was interesting to see how our elections affect the UK. BBC News 24 was focusing on America all day and all the headlines in the British tabloids focused on our election. In true British tabloid style, the headlines focused on the race of our candidates, an issue I thought we had already passed, but I guess I was wrong. The Daily Mail posted this picture on it's front page showing Obama as a white man and McCain as a black man with a line in the middle saying "Let the issues, be issues," which is a good point, something I hoped would have been common sense, but I tend to give people too much credit.

"Let the issues be issues"

Many people only look to the white people to be racist, but this is not the truth. During voting in Philadelphia, Black Panthers made their presence known by wielding night sticks and intimidating possible McCain voters. Here is a video of one encounter:

I really wanted to stay up all night as the electorates were tallied up, but alas, I had work in the morning and the final results would not finish until 5 am. So I went to sleep.
In the morning I was not surprised, Obama had won and I was relieved. Although I had not cared who had won, I was happy it was Obama though I was not fully convinced of my support for him until I saw his acceptance speech which filled me with tears from the moment he stepped on the stage. For this moment, as I watched a new president walk on the stage, I was truly proud of my country, and extremely happy that the "Bush years" were over. I would like to say I would have had the same response if that had been McCain on the stage, but I really can't say.
For those of you who missed it, and have only seen snips of the acceptance speech, you really should watch it. It was really, really good. People I have talked to in the coffee shop were even moved to tears and are truly excited for us and hope that Britain could be so bold as to vote the way we did.