The highlight of tonight’s TV election coverage, or at least the most amusing highlight, came from a special report on Chicago’s Channel 2 (CBS) news. Turns out that those who voted early in the election were put on a special list, a list that election officials were supposed to check before allowing people to vote on November 4. Big surprise, the investigating citizens and reporters discovered that the lists weren’t being checked and it was easy for voters to, as Chicago is known for, vote early and often.
The end of the TV news report concluded, however, that double voters would be caught after the election and would be heavily prosecuted. It will be interesting to see if anyone took advantage of the voting loopholes that result from dealing with untrained volunteers and sometimes scattered methods of record keeping.
As for the election coverage itself, it was the same as every year. For hours the pundits debated, created graphs, interviewed experts, conducted polls, and speculated like crazy. Then, with 30 seconds before the regular evening news broadcast, Brian Williams hurriedly said “We’re declaring Obama the winner.” I realize an election is an important event and needs to be covered by the news, but a part of me was thinking I would have preffered to watch The Mentalist and Eli Stone followed by the results announcement and candidate speeches, rather than endure hours of talking heads that essentially don’t get viewers anywhere.
As for the speeches, McCain surprised and impressed me. His concession speech was gracious, moving, and noble. He was grateful for all he’d been able to be a part of, and all the people he’d worked with. He said that the people had spoken, definitively, and he would honor their decision. He asked for unity between the parties and said he would be glad to support Obama to make the changes necessary that our country needs. He had to hold off boos for Obama at a few points, but largely his speech seemed to stun his supporters into silence.
A TV reporter stated McCain had been more like himself in that speech than he had been during his campaign, and I agree. I’ve always been a Democrat, but I’d liked McCain. He’s intelligent, has a good sense of humor, and wasn’t afraid to be controversial amongst Republicans. When he started catering to the far right, he alienated a lot of the middle-of-the-road conservatives that he needed to win the election.
Obama gave a stirring speech to a crowd of 70,000 in Chicago, focusing as he has throughout his campaign on working together to effect change in the country. He included all people in this movement, young, old, male, female, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, and Native American, disabled and non-disabled, gay, straight, Democrat or Republican. He also gave props to McCain and the phone call he received that was apparently as gracious as his speech had been. Whether it was something they had agreed upon or not, the fact that these two candidates spoke so well of each other was the perfect starting point for drawing the two sides together–instead of the divisive politics that have been ruling Washington for so long.
Obama did capture perfectly the America we can be proud of, how times have continually improved and how we have overcome obstacles and changed things no one thought would ever change. My favorite moment was that he said this victory had proven that the greatness of America was not in its strength of arms or wealth, but in the strength of our ideals and beliefs and hopes. And that is an America that I would be happy to believe in again.
Here’s to hope and a promising start to the next four years.
