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Journalism of Courage
Americans went to the polls on Tuesday to choose the next president of the United States, deciding whether Senator Barack Obama or Senator John McCain was better suited to guide the nation through an economic crisis at home and two wars abroad.
In voting booths in every corner of the land, people collectively wrote the ending to a political saga that had been unfolding for nearly two years, during a tumultuous, uncertain period of American history in which record numbers of people expressed concerns that the country was heading down the wrong track.
Some voting experts and campaign aides predicted that there would be a record turnout of some 130 million voters, which would be the highest percentage turnout in a century, and would shatter the previous record of 123.5 million people who cast ballots four years ago.
By noon on Tuesday some precincts in Chester County, Pennsylvania, were reporting that up to half of their registered voters had already cast ballots, said Agnes L O8217;Toole, the county8217;s deputy director of voter services. She said that voters waited in lines that lasted up to two hours. 8220;This is above and beyond an anomaly,8221; O8217;Toole said. 8220;Our phones are off the wall.8221;
The candidates, exhausted after finishing the marathon election season with some last minute sprints of campaigning, all voted in the morning.
Obama cast his ballot at the Beulah Shoesmith Elementary School in Chicago with his wife, Michelle, and daughters Sasha and Malia, at 7.36 a.m. local time. 8220;I noticed that Michelle took a long time though,8221; he said afterwards. 8220;I had to check to see who she was voting for.8221;
McCain voted later in Phoenix, at 9.08 a.m. local time, at the Albright United Methodist Church. He and his wife, Cindy, were greeted by supporters with cheers of 8220;Senator McCain!8221; and 8220;Thank you, Senator! We love you!8221; McCain emerged with a sticker on his lapel that said, 8220;I voted today.8221;
Their running mates voted as well. Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, voted in Wilmington, Delaware, accompanied by his wife, Jill, and 91-year-old mother, Jean Finnegan Biden. And Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska, voted in Wasilla, accompanied by her husband, Todd.
In tiny Dixville Notch, New Hampshire, which casts its ballots just after midnight, Obama won 15 votes to McCain8217;s six. It traditionally votes Republican, and President George W. Bush won the vote there in 2004.
There were some reports of problems. Virginia election officials said that three polling places opened late because of 8220;human error.8221; At some polling places there, voters came in from the rain and failed to properly dry their hands before touching their ballots, fouling the optical scanning machines. And at a polling place on the east side of Philadelphia, several voting machines were not working because there was no extension cord available and they could not reach the electrical outlet. But most areas reported things going smoothly.
US Presidential elections are really 50 state-by-state elections, and one in the District of Columbia, and for Obama and McCain the day was all about trying to win enough of those states to get the 270 electoral college votes needed to win the presidency. To that end they spent the last days and hours of the campaign making their final pushes in closely contested states from Florida to Virginia to Colorado that could tip the balance in favour of either man.
Looming over the race was the unpopular Republican president Bush, whose approval ratings are hovering at record lows after starting a war in Iraq that many Americans concluded was a mistake, and presiding during an economic collapse this fall that left millions of people worrying about their mortgages and retirement savings.
Obama, 47, a first-term senator from Illinois, premised his candidacy on change, arguing that he would turn the page on Bush8217;s policies and make the country respected again at home and abroad. McCain, 72, a son and grandson of admirals who served five and a half years as a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War, ran as the most experienced candidate to be commander-in-chief, but also argued that he had long bucked his party and would bring change to Washington as well.
