Senator Stevens a Senator no more

The close of a long Governmental career has been foretold by the voters in Alaska. Senator Ted Stevens, who has been at the forefrontof Alaskan political machine since the time before Alaska’s statehood has lost his reelection bid. In the end the longest serving Republican Senator in history lost his seat as voters lost confidence in him and question his moral character over his conviction on several federal felony counts. Senator Stevens has held office since the time of Lyndon Johnson’s administration and that may also have played into Stevens loss, as many Alaskans have joined with the majority of its lower 48 counterparts in looking for a change in direction and governmental approach.

Senator Ted Stevens defeat puts the Democrat President-Elect that much closer to a broad Democrat control. The Senate now sits with in two seats of the possible 60 seat filibuster proof majority. The 58 controlling seats do count two Independents that generally vote Democrat.

Democrat Mark Begich, who has claimed a narrow victory Tuesday after the tally of remaining ballots showed him holding a 3,724-vote edge over Senator Stevens. “Alaska has been in the midst of a generational shift — you could see it,” said Begich, the current Anchorage mayor and now Senator Elect.

The 44th President of America Barack Obama

The divisive and anger laced fear tactics of the McCain Palin ticket appear to have back fired. In the end McCain conceded victory to Obama first in a phone call and then in a well handled, heartfelt and honest speech. A speech that showed the old McCain. The pre electoral candidacy McCain. A McCain that up until that moment on the stage Had not shown up.

If McCain had handled the rest of his campaign the way he handled his speech last night he would have had mush higher acceptance across the nation. He would not have had to choose Palin as his bottom ticket, she would have remained unknown, and we would have had an election cycle that would not have been separatist in nature.

Obama’s speech in Grant Park was one of hope and inspiration which is more or less what we as a nation have come to expect from our President Elect. We will have a true orator of note for the first time since … well since JFK. The Last time I heard this type of public speech ability from a candidate was Bobby Kennedy and that is in many ways fitting as some of the Kennedy staff has been interlaced in President Elect Obama’s staff from the beginning and it has paid off.

No longer being called for are the chants of “terrorist” and “NObama” or “he’s a Muslim” and with any luck those voices will fade into the distant background and not well up again. Replacing them are 2 words “President Elect” and nine other words, “The Fourty Fourth President of the United States of America”.

We as a nation turned a page last night. We in fact have not yet closed the book, but we turned a page. We passed a mile stone that has been on the horizon for a ling time. Now we can stop being who we were and start working towards being the America we should be. Though it will not go away totally and will linger on for some time as all disease does, the hate and the racist sentiment of the past will slowly die off.

Last night was a hard fought victory and a difficult battle’s closing. As the numbers show it was President Elect Obama’s race to loose.

In the end even though we have yet to add to add North Carolina or Missouri to the total tabulation of the Electoral College votes, Obama has won the Presidency with an Electoral Vote count of 349 to 162 and a Popular Vote of 62,288,448 (52% of the vote) to 55,249,836. Again I will say that if the McCain that spoke last night had shown up at the beginning, this map and those number may have turned out vary differently.

At the end of the night and as the sun begins to come up this morning the Democrat Party has pulled off another victory or rather 15 of them. The Senate has changed power to the Democrat Party giving them the Majority with 2 seats still open and up for grabs as of this morning. This gives President Elect Obama a Democrat House, and Senate to work with as he moves to take his office on January 20th at 12:00 Noon.

In the mean time, I would fully expect the stock market to rise dramatically over the next few days as investors and the world see the Democratic Party majority and the incoming President Elect Barack Obama as a positive force of change in our international perception and as a wise move for our young nations future.