Mr. President!

President-elect Sen. Barack Obama faces supporters during his election night victory rally in Chicago, November 4, 2008. (Jim Bourg/Reuters)

Talk about an historic election. From MSNBC News:

Barack Obama, a 47-year-old first-term senator from Illinois, shattered more than 200 years of history Tuesday night by winning election as the first African-American president of the United States.

A crowd of 125,000 people jammed Grant Park in Chicago, where Obama addressed the nation for the first time as its president-elect at midnight ET. Hundreds of thousands more — Mayor Richard Daley said he would not be surprised if a million Chicagoans jammed the streets — watched on a large television screen outside the park.

“If there is anyone out there who doubts that America is a place where anything is possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer,” Obama declared.

“Young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled, Americans have sent a message to the world that we have never been just a collection of red states and blue states,” he said. “We have been and always will be the United States of America.

“It’s been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America,” he said to a long roar.

Here is the electoral map showing Obama's unprecedented win:

Map showing electoral vote for 2008 presidential election. From the New York Times.

Some quick comments. Obama won in the Northeast, the West Coast, a good chunk of the Rustbelt, and even the more reliable GOP states of Florida, New Mexico, Colorado, Iowa, and Nevada. The GOP, under John McCain was relegated to mainly the West, and the Deep South. I'm seriously wondering if the Republican Party is becoming a marginalized party, mainly the Deep South, considering the amount of hate and fear-mongering the GOP displayed during this election? It is an interesting thought.

The eight-year nightmare of this George W. Bush presidency is now over. Change has come with the first African-American president, and a stronger, Democratically-controlled Congress. Barack Obama showed an incredible brilliance in running such a flawless campaign, even in the face of such huge obstacles of becoming that first, credible, African-American candidate, developing a new fund raising system of small, consistent donations from average Americans, and bringing his message of change and hope against a withering fire of negative attacks and character assassinations from his opponents. I don't think I have ever seen a presidential campaign run the way the Obama campaign has run it, under all aspects of raising money, generating the campaign message, and countering attacks--and this even includes the Reagan, Bush Senior and Junior, and Clinton campaigns. If this man was as brilliant and smart in running his presidential campaign, then Barack Obama may do very well as our president.