Compare & Contrast

in 2000, the presidential election results looked like this:
Gore: 50,996,116 48%
Bush: 50,456,169 48%
Other: 3,874,040 4%

2004
Bush: 62,040,606 51%
Kerry: 59,028,109 48%
Nader: 411,304 1%

2008
Obama: 65,445,394 52.6%
McCain: 57,446,223 46.1%
Nader: 679,149 0.5%
Barr: 499,912 0.4%

1 p.m. Eastern Time on November 9, with 99.6% of the precincts reporting, the total number of votes stands at only 124.47 million, just 2.2 million more than in the 2004 election.
[ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2008 ]

So 2.2M more people voted this November than 4 years ago. Obama still got more votes than any other candidate in the history of the US presidency. He won by TWICE the margin that Bush did in 2004. Remember the "Political capital" speech W gave, gloating, over his win? If you don't here it is:
"Let me put it to you this way: I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it. It is my style. That's what happened in the -- after the 2000 election, I earned some capital. I've earned capital in this election -- and I'm going to spend it for what I told the people I'd spend it on, which is -- you've heard the agenda: Social Security and tax reform, moving this economy forward, education, fighting and winning the war on terror."

• Social Security? Yep... all reformed now. Check. Too bad we couldn't have privatized it before September 15th 2008!
  
• Tax "reform"? Yep, reduce it for the rich people; redistribute that wealth upwards so it'll trickle down.
  
• Moving the economy forward? Yep, off a cliff and into the abyss.
• Winning the war on terror? Ohh yeah. That's all wrapped up now.

So... 2.2M more people voted, and Obama got 3.4 million more votes than Bush ever did, on his luckiest day. This new President Elect should be gloating, no? He should be out on the links playing golf like Clinton was the day after, no?

No, instead, in his humble acceptance speech, he credited THE PEOPLE who elected him. He refused to gloat and rub it in to the Republicans he just resoundingly defeated. His campaign ordered up a giant fireworks show for Grant Park, and he told them "No, it would not look right." This supposed secret Muslim, this pal of terrorists, this untrustworthy man of poor judgment and inexperience, this socialist (as he's been called by wing nuts) was humble in his victory.

When W said he wanted to reach across the aisle, what he meant was "reach across to pull the Democrats over to our side and push forward the Republican agenda". Obama means quite the opposite. His poise, demeanor, composure, diction, vernacular, JUDGMENT, PERSPECTIVE, grace, NEIGHBORLY-NESS, all came through in his acceptance speech, and his press conference Friday.

How Damn Refreshing! How incredibly refreshing! Bob Schieffer's got a beautiful commentary on it here.

Dr. Desert Flower and I watch the hand wringers at Faux News now, to hear them rant about the demise of America and the impending "end of days", and how now suddenly, they're gonna "keep an eye on Washington" and report "the facts" to 'the Nation'. It really is comedy gold, as they grasp for straws and predict such dark days ahead. Certainly, the Democrats will make some serious errors in the next 2 and 4 years, but we're starting off at a Much Better level than having a spoiled, failed businessman / frat boy / cheerleader / all-hat-no-cattle-pseudo-cowboy at the helm.