Election Night

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Every four years we have the chance to elect a president. It seems like this last presidential campaign was the longest in history. The news channels have been talking about this election for at least the last two years. As you know, New York, my current state of residence, went very Blue and voted for Barack Obama. That was very obvious as you walked the streets of the city. No matter what your political ideology is, I think we can all agree this was a very historic election in which we have a president elected of a different race.

Some friends of mine who have lived here for awhile said it was really cool to go to Rockefeller Center for the presidential election, so we went. At Rockefeller Center, they have a map of the country and change the states red or blue depending on which way the states vote. Then they have fabric going up the GE building representing the number of electoral college votes each candidate gets. With all of this and big screens up to watch the results, it was the perfect place to watch the results come in.

We were actually there when they announced that Barack Obama had enough electoral college votes to win the presidency. Everyone went crazy. There were even a lot of people crying. I wondered what would have happened if I had shouted "Go McCain!" Needless to say, it was a fun night to remember and one that will go down in the history books.

We also took a detour to see the results in Times Square. There were results parties all over the city. I heard the biggest and craziest was the party up in Harlem. I had some friends who went up there after they had announced Barack Obama won and they said it was a madhouse until about 2 am. Everyone was so excited for the first African-American President. Here's a picture of the electoral college map on the famous Nasdaq screen.