Emotional Powell Hails Obama's 'Historic' Victory

Former U.S. secretary of state Colin Powell on Wednesday hailed Barack Obama's U.S. presidential election victory as a historic day in race relations but played down the likelihood of joining Obama's administration.

"President-elect Obama is going to be a president for all America," Powell, one of the most prominent black Americans who served in the military and government for 40 years, told reporters in Hong Kong.

He praised Obama for running an inclusive campaign that had cut across ethnic, income and age lines and described his victory as an historic occasion.

" ... the fact that he is also black just has turned America on, it's very emotional," Powell said of Obama, who becomes the first black U.S. president.

Powell, a retired U.S. general and former secretary of state in Republican President George W. Bush's administration, endorsed Democrat Obama in October, calling him a "transformational figure" who could be an "exceptional president."

Powell however played down the prospects of being part of the new Obama administration with slightly different comments to those he made last month, when he said he was not looking for a job but would have to consider it if asked.

"I am not interested in a position in government, nor have I been offered one, I don't expect to be offered one," he said.

"Should he call me for advice I'd be more than happy to give it, but I cannot expect to be going back to government," he said.

Powell spoke of Obama's victory while describing his own struggle in overcoming racial prejudice when he first joined the army soon after former President Harry S. Truman had desegregated the military.

"In 50 years I have seen my country move so dramatically toward a dream that our founding fathers had," Powell said.

"It says a lot about who we are as a people and emotions you see in the United States ... that's the America we remember, that's the America we want to see, that's the America that's always been an example to the rest of the world," Powell said.

He expected an Obama administration to reach out to America's potential adversaries as well seek a greater engagement with its allies.

"Its easy to talk to a friend, sometimes it is a little more difficult to talk to adversaries, but they are the ones you need to talk to, and talk to them, not just place demands and demand an outcome of negotiations before the negotiations are held," he said.

Powell urged Obama to reach out to China politically and economically to further bolster Sino-U.S. ties. "I do not expect him to adopt protectionist policies," he said.

Obama in a landslide!

In DIXVILLE NOTCH, New Hampshire. Anybody ever heard of them?

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama emerged victorious in the first election returns of the 2008 presidential race, winning 15 of 21 votes cast in Dixville Notch, New Hampshire.

People in the isolated village in New Hampshire's northeast corner voted just after midnight Tuesday.

It was the first time since 1968 that the village leaned Democratic in an election.

Obama's rival, Republican John McCain, won 6 votes.

A full 100 percent of registered voters in the village cast ballots. And the votes didn't take long to tally.

The town, home to around 75 residents, has opened its polls shortly after midnight each election day since 1960, drawing national media attention for being the first place in the country to make its presidential preferences known.

However, since 1996, another small New Hampshire town -- Hart's Location -- reinstated its practice from the 1940s and also began opening its polls at midnight.

The result in Dixville Notch is hardly a reliable bellwether for the eventual winner of the White House -- or even the result statewide.

While New Hampshire is a perennial swing state -- with 4 Electoral College votes at stake -- Dixville Notch consistently leans Republican. The last Democrat it picked was Hubert Humphrey over Richard Nixon in 1968.

Twas The Night Before the Election

My "Something New" boyfriend sent this to me. I had to post it.

Here's what was going through my head earlier on this Election Eve:

TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE THE ELECTION, and all through the country
Not a pollster was stirring, not even the Reuters/Zogby.

And then, on that Monday, I heard an SNL spoof
The fawning and folksy who can field dress a moose.

With ballot soon in hand, some still undecided all around,
After two years of listening, my decision has long been found.

One is dressed all in purple hearts, from his head to his foot,
While the other lacks a lapel pin, making his patriotism moot;

A bundle of negative ads have been flung back-to-back,
And I worry the liberal media has been funded by my PAC.

My views I hold back, most time through gritted teeth
,And the disapproval ratings can’t reflect the frustration I seethe.

Yet happiness I’ve discovered, through candidates less smelly,
Their debates, unlike the VPs, proceed duller than sandwiches of peanut butter and jelly.

Seeing the wink of her eye and a weird cut on old dude’s head,
I fret me as I realize, the maverick’s questionable longevity I dread;

That other one speaks prose of hope, but he’s an elitist with legislative pork
,Plus he fills all the stockings, by redistributing the money of Joe the Dork.

By voting I’ll voice support for the candidate I choose,
Force applied to the “vote” button, all dangling chads will be sheared loose;

Exit pollsters I’ll dodge, feigning my moderate poker face,
And to my television I’ll soon be glued; be it MSNBC, Fox News, or Comedy Central’s comedic pace.

Still I fear we’ll hear them exclaim, as the networks can’t call the election with reliable statistic foresight...
"Thanks for voting y’all, the recount starts tomorrow night!"

Gov. Palin to Obama: This Isn't Over Yet

Lakeland, FL: "Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin had a pointed message Sunday for Barack Obama: This thing isn't over yet."

Palin said the Democratic presidential nominee was acting as if he's already won the election and had already written his inaugural address.

"Barack Obama and I both have spent quite some time on the basketball court," Palin told a raucous crowd of more than 5,000 at the Tampa Convention enter. "But where I come from, you have to win the game before you start cutting down the net."

Nine days before the election, Palin was making another push to sway voters in the battleground state of Florida, where polls show Republican nominee John McCain trails Obama in the fight for the state's 27 electoral votes. The Interstate 4 corridor between Tampa and Orlando, where Palin was concentrating her efforts Sunday, is where most of the state's undecided voters live. It takes 270 Electoral College votes to win the presidency.

"You kinda get the feeling that the Obama campaign thinks this whole election process is just a formality," she said. "They've overlooked, though, the minor detail of earning your confidence and your trust and winning your vote.

"And judging from the media coverage, it does seem the coronation is already set," Palin said.
Obama's campaign said the claim that he has written an inaugural address is "completely false." Spokesman Bill Burton said the reference to an address came from a New York Times report Saturday that former White House chief of staff John D. Podesta had written a draft inaugural speech for Obama and included it in a recent book. Burton said Podesta wrote it as a sample address, not for Obama but for whoever became the nominee.

Palin also addressed recent reports that the Republican Party spent $150,000 on clothes and accessories on her for the campaign.

"This whole thing with the wardrobe, I try to just ignore it because it's so ridiculous," Palin said.
"Those clothes, they are not my property, just like the lighting and the staging and everything else the RNC purchased," she said. "I'm not taking them with me. I'm back to wearing my old clothes from my favorite consignment shop in Anchorage, Alaska."

Palin talked about her accessories Sunday: earrings that were a gift from her husband's Yup'ik Eskimo mother, and "a $35 wedding ring from Hawaii that I bought myself. Because with my ring, I always thought, it's not what it's made of, it's what it represents."

Palin continued her criticism of an Obama economic plan that she says amounts to socialism, characterizing him as "Barack the wealth-spreader." She vowed that McCain would allow people to keep more of their money, and accused Obama of not telling the whole truth about what she said are his plans to redistribute wealth.

Later at a rally in Kissimmee, Palin said: "Florida, you have a choice between a politician who puts his faith in government and a leader who puts his faith in you. There's only one man in this race who's always fought for you, and that's John McCain."