November 5, 2008 PageA2 One for the Ages continued "But there’s nothing major or sys­ temic." Perhaps the most bizarre bar­ rier to voting was in Minnesota where a truck hit a utility pole in St. Pauls Merriam Park neighbor­ hood. The accident knocked power out for about 90 minutes to tw o p o llin g lo c a tio n s. Joe Mansky, Ramsey County's elec­ tions manager, said voting con­ tinued at those sites. Election judges said the bal­ lots were kept secure at one of the locations until the power was re­ stored and the ballots could be run through an electronic ma­ chine, while a backup generator kicked in at the other site. Late Monday, McCain's cam ­ paign sued the Virginia electoral board, trying to force the state to count late-arriving military bal­ lots from overseas.- McCain, the Republican can­ didate and a POW during the Vietnam War, asked a federal judge to order state election offi­ cials to count absentee ballots mailed from abroad that arrive as late as Nov. 14. Late Tuesday, the judge ruled he will hear the lawsuit on Nov. 10. He ordered election officials to keep late-arriving ballots until then. Lawsuits have become com ­ mon in election battles. The 2000 recount meltdown in Florida was ultimately decided by the Supreme Court. Jk from Eront b a ttle g ro u n d state. N orm a Storms, a 78-year-old resident of Raytown, said her driveway was filled with cars left by voters who couldn't get into nearby parking lots. "I have never seen anything like this in all my born days," she said. "I am just astounded." In some places the wait was longer than two hours. "Well, 1 think I feel somehow strong and energized to stand here even without food and wa­ ter," said Alexandria, Va„ resi­ dent Ahmed Bowling, facing a very long line. "What matters is to cast my vote." Some voting advocates wor­ ried that — tolerant voters or no — the nation's myriad election systems could falter late in the day, when people getting off work hit the polls. "We have a system that wasn't ready for huge turnout," said T ova W ang o f g o v ern m en t watchdog group Common Cause. "People have to wait for hours. Some people can do that. Some people can't. This is not the way to run a democracy." Ohio, which experienced ex­ treme voting delays in the last hours of the 2004 election, had some jammed paper problems in Franklin County. "W ere taking care of things like that," said elec­ tions spokesman Ben Piscitelli. P o rtland ► C o m m un ity C o lle g e Wo re all ab your futu photo by Voting for O bam a Barack Obama campaign workers give the thumbs up to Northeast Portland resident and Cannons Ribs Express restaurant owner Wayne Cannon as he drops off his election ballot Monday at the Obama campaign office on North­ east Killingsworth Street. First Black President Elected continued Portland Community College is proud to present Dr. Cornel West Nine days after the inauguration of the next U S. president, one ot America's most provocative public intellectuals and author of Race Matters and the upcoming Hope on a Tightrope will look back on the 2008 I election for a night of insight and inspiration. I Thursday, January 29th, 2009 Doors open at 7pm, Newmark Theatre M11 SW Broadway SI., Portland Tickets ------'ODENCE Health & Services M ark W ashington /T he P ortland O bserver Available now at Ticketmaster and the Portland Center tor Performing Arts (PCPA) Box Office at a price of $25, $35 and $45 Student tickets for $25 may be purchased at the PCPA Box Office only. from Eront O v ern ig h t he becam e a so u g h t-after su rrogate c a m ­ paigner, and he had scarcely settled into his Senate seat when he began preparing for his run for the White House. A survey of voters leaving p o llin g p laces on T u esd ay showed the economy was by far the top Election Day issue. Six in 10 voters said so, and none of the other top issues — energy, Iraq, terrorism and health care — was picked by more than one in 10. "May God bless whoever wins tonight," President Bush told din­ ner guests at the White House, where his tenure runs out on Jan. 20. The Democratic leaders of Congress celebrated in Wash­ ington. "It is not a mandate for a party or ideology but a mandate for change," said Senate Majority leader Harry Reid of Nevada. Said Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, "Tonight the Ameri­ can people have called for a new direction. They have called for change in America." Obama reached the 270 elec­ toral votes he needed forelection at 8 p.m. when NBC News pro­ jected that he would win Califor­ nia, Washington and Oregon. McCain said he “recognized the special significance” Obama’s victory had for African-Ameri­ cans. A ddressing su pporters in Phoenix, McCain said, “The American people have spoken, and they have spoken clearly.” “ W e both reco g n ize that though we have come a long way from the old injustices that once stained our nation’s reputation and denied some Americans the full blessings of American citi­ zenship, the memory of them still have the pow er to w ound,” McCain said. “Let there be no reason for any American to fail to cherish their citizenship in this, the greatest nation on Earth," said McCain, who pledged his support and help for the new president. Obama’s election was a broad one. He won Florida, the scene of So much electoral chaos in recent SEASONS MARKET » N O W D E L IV E R IN G Y o u r f a v o r it e n e ig h b o r h o o d g r o c e r y s t o r e n o w g r o c e r ie s r ig h t t o y o u r h o m e o r o ffic e . elections. He won Ohio, a key to President Bush’s two election wins. He won Colorado, home of the religious right. And he won Virginia, reversing 40 years of Republican victories there. Surveys of voters as they left polling places nationwide encap­ sulated the historic nature of the victory by Obama, the son of a Kenyan father and a white Ameri­ can mother. As expected, he won overwhelmingly among African- American voters, but he also won aslimmajority of white voters. He won among women and Latino voters, reversing a longstanding Republican trend. And he won by more than 2-to-1 among voters of al 1 races 30 years old and younger. That dynamic was telling in Ohio and in Pennsylvania, where McCain poured in millions of dollars of scarce resources. Obama won both, along with Massachu­ setts, Michigan, New Jersey and New York, all states with hefty electoral vote hauls, NBC News projected. McCain countered with Texas and numerous smaller states, pri­ marily in the South and the Great Plains. In interviews with NBC News, aides to McCain said they were proud that they had put up a good fight in “historically difficult times.” A senior adviser said McCain himself was “fine” but that he felt “he let his staff and supporters down.” Obama will have a strongly Democratic Congress on the other end of Capitol Hill. The Demo­ crats won strong majorities in both the House and the Senate. NBC News projected that the party would fall just short of a procedurally important 60 percent “supermajority” in the Senate, however. In the end, Florida, the scene of electoral chaos in recent elec­ tions, had little impact. Florida had been closely watched, but results there and in other closely contested states were delayed until after Obama clinched his victory as record numbers of vot­ ers floeked to polling stations, e nergi zed by an e I cetion in which they would sej^ct either the nation’sTfrst bliefc president or its first female vice president. Obama, who led in nearly all public opinion polls, and McCain both launched get-out-the-vote efforts that led to long lines at polling stations in a contest that D em ocrats were also hoping would help them expand their majorities in both houses of Con­ gress. Americans voted in numbers unprecedented since women wbre given the franchise in 1920. Sec­ retaries of state predicted turn­ outs approaching 90 percent in Virginia and Colorado and 80 per­ cent or more in big states like Ohio, California, Texas, Virginia, Missouri and Maryland. At New Shiloh Church Minis­ tries on Maslin Lake in Hunts­ ville, A la., Stephanie Lacy- Conerly brought along a chair, expecting to stay for hours. • “It’s exciting,” she said. “It’s an historical moment.” Election officials around the country braced for problems, hut only minor issues were reported. However, the McCain campaign filed suit in Virginia, home tosev- eral major military bases, com­ plaining that absentee ballots were not mailed on time to many members of the military serving overseas. I1'*‘'JJortlani't (Observer Established 1970 USPS 959-680 _______________________________ 4747 NE Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd., Portland, OR 97211 E ditor - in -C h u t . Pi tutsHt a: Charles E ditor : M ichael D istribution M anager : C reative D irector : H. Washington Leighton Mark W ashington Paul N eufeldt The Portland Observer welcom es freelance subm issions Manuscripts and photographs should be clearly labeled and will he returned if accompanied by a self addressed envelope All created design display ads becom e the sole property o f the newspaper and cannot be used in other publications or personal usage with