By BILLY HOUSE and WILLIAM MARCH/Media General News Service
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TAMPA -- Americans wept tears of joy. They photographed their ballots to capture the moment. And in what could be historic numbers, they waited in line to make history.
Barack Obama, the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas, choreographed an Electoral College landslide Tuesday that few could have predicted just two years ago. Most adults would never have predicted this would happen in their lifetimes.
The 47-year-old became America's first black president and the nation's 44th by winning Florida and a string of other battleground states.
"If there is anyone out there still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer," Obama said in his acceptance speech.
"It's been a long time coming, but tonight ... change has come to America," he told a crowd of 70,000 in Chicago's Grant Park.
Shortly after the nation's last polls closed at 11 p.m., his Republican opponent, Arizona Sen. John McCain, conceded the race to Obama and his running mate, Delaware Sen. Joe Biden. Obama's history thwarts what would have been another historical first, the election of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as the first woman vice president.
"The American people have spoken, and they have spoken clearly," said McCain, in a concession speech delivered in Phoenix before a crowd who booed whenever Obama's name was mentioned.
"I realize the special significance this has for African-Americans," said McCain. "Sen. Obama has achieved a great thing for himself and his country, I applaud him for it."
Obama is the first sitting member of Congress elected president since John F. Kennedy in 1960. He is also the first Democratic president to win Florida in more than a decade, helped by a big voter turnout in the state and nationally, including unusual numbers of black voters.
His win here came in part from his performance in the crucial Interstate 4 corridor counties, the swing area of the state, where he piled up bigger vote totals than 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry in several counties.
Obama also appeared to have outperformed Kerry in the state's traditional Democratic fortress, Southeast Florida, with its heavy concentrations of black, Jewish and Hispanic voters.
Obama's coattails or nationwide dissatisfaction with the GOP administration, or both, also contributed to increasing the Democratic majorities in Congress.
While Florida voters were helping elect Obama, they also increased the numbers of Democrats in the state's delegation to Congress.
Democrats previously held nine of the state's 25 U.S. House seats. They lost one Tuesday, scandal-plagued Tim Mahoney of Palm Beach Gardens. But they took two others from Republican incumbents, unseating Reps. Tom Feeney of Oviedo and RicKeller of Orlando, and were threatening to unseat a third, Mario Diaz-Balart of Miami.
Nationally, Democrats increased their 236-seat majority they already held in the 435-seat House. They were hoping also to gain a filibuster-proof, 60-seat majority in the Senate.
No Tampa Bay area congressional seats changed hands.
But the disappointing GOP showing nationally almost immediately prompted a shake-up in the GOP's current House leadership, as Rep. Adam Putnam House of Bartow, announced he would step down as conference chairman, the chamber's No. 3 Republican.
House Republicans have already scheduled new leadership elections for Nov. 17.
Florida's leading Democrats and hundreds of Obama volunteers gathered at a downtown Tampa hotel to celebrate Obama's win, and several said that win augurs well for their party's future in Florida.
It "provides the basis for building a strong foundation," said State Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink, widely considered Florida's rising Democratic star.
U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor of Tampa, an early Obama supporter, said the win means, "We are on the verge of a significant change in this society."
That sentiment was shared by hundreds of campaign volunteers who gathered at the Tampa Marriott Waterside. The crowd, many of them college-age, erupted when the networks called the election for Obama.
"He speaks to us in our own language," said Matt Coppens, president of the University of South Florida Democrats.
High-level Republicans were notably absent from the McCain campaign's main election-night gathering Tuesday at a St. Petersburg Carillon Park Hilton.
Gov. Charlie Crist was in St. Petersburg but did not attend.
The crowd, which peaked about 300, began to thin after results of local races were announced, and thinned further when Fox News proclaimed Florida as "too close to call" at about 10:30 p.m.
Pinellas County GOP Chairman Tony DiMatteo said he doesn't believe McCain's loss will harm Crist's re-election effort - but he said Crist might have made a difference in McCain's race.
"I have no doubt with Charlie Crist as the vice president nominee, we would have carried Florida," DiMatteo said.
Obama's victory caps a meteoric political rise for the mixed-race son of a broken marriage between a white college student whose family move from Kansas to Hawaii, and a fellow student from Kenya.He was reared largely by his mother's parents in Hawaii.
Starting out as a community organizer in Chicago, Obama later became a civil rights lawyer, then an Illinois state senator.
He won his U.S. Senate seat in 2004, and caught national attention that same year with a speech at the national Democratic convention.
He launched his bid for his party's presidential nomination less than three years later, eventually outdueling the widely presumed Democratic heir apparent, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.
During the campaign, he pressed an image as a change agent who would bring an end to the Iraq war and, later, as a calm and capable leader in the face of the Wall Street collapse.
McCain has two more years remaining in his current six-year Senate term.
The loss leaves a question mark regarding Palin's political future of his running mate.
Palin's populist appeal brought new excitement to the Republican ticket when McCain chose her, but she also drew criticism as inexperienced and unqualified.
As national polls projected a McCain loss late in the race, it was widely speculated that she would emerge from a loss as a party leader and possible 2012 presidential contender.
Polls in Florida had shown Obama ahead in the final days of the race, but by only about two percentage points, close to the final outcome.
The outcome makes it appear that Obama's campaign was able to match the vaunted voter turnout machine used by Republicans in the past several election cycles. Democrats have said that may give them hope for better performance in the future in statewide races.
Prior to Election Day, estimates of voter turnout nationally ranged as high as 140 million, compared to 121 million who voted four years ago.
About 38 percent of Florida's 11.2 million voters cast ballots before Election Day, either by early voting or absentee ballots.
A computer analysis by the Orlando Sentinel during the week indicated that 22 percent of those voters were black, even though only 13 percent of the state's voters are black.
Election Day capped another tumultuous presidential election season in Florida.
The attempt to increase Florida's influence on the nomination battles by moving its primary up to Jan. 29 resulted in a yearlong controversy before the general election battle even started.
In the general election battle, Florida once more became the state's premier battleground. Obama vigorously pursued a "Florida strategy," just as Al Gore did in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004.
But he succeeded where they failed, winning the state that McCain had acknowledged repeatedly he had to win to become president.
Tampa Tribune Reporters Adam Emerson and Courtney Cairns Pastor contributed to this report. Tribune Reporter William March can be reached at 813-259-7761. Media General News Service Reporter Billy House can be reached at 202 662-7673.
Barack Obama, the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas, choreographed an Electoral College landslide Tuesday that few could have predicted just two years ago. Most adults would never have predicted this would happen in their lifetimes.
The 47-year-old became America's first black president and the nation's 44th by winning Florida and a string of other battleground states.
"If there is anyone out there still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer," Obama said in his acceptance speech.
"It's been a long time coming, but tonight ... change has come to America," he told a crowd of 70,000 in Chicago's Grant Park.
Shortly after the nation's last polls closed at 11 p.m., his Republican opponent, Arizona Sen. John McCain, conceded the race to Obama and his running mate, Delaware Sen. Joe Biden. Obama's history thwarts what would have been another historical first, the election of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as the first woman vice president.
"The American people have spoken, and they have spoken clearly," said McCain, in a concession speech delivered in Phoenix before a crowd who booed whenever Obama's name was mentioned.
"I realize the special significance this has for African-Americans," said McCain. "Sen. Obama has achieved a great thing for himself and his country, I applaud him for it."
Obama is the first sitting member of Congress elected president since John F. Kennedy in 1960. He is also the first Democratic president to win Florida in more than a decade, helped by a big voter turnout in the state and nationally, including unusual numbers of black voters.
His win here came in part from his performance in the crucial Interstate 4 corridor counties, the swing area of the state, where he piled up bigger vote totals than 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry in several counties.
Obama also appeared to have outperformed Kerry in the state's traditional Democratic fortress, Southeast Florida, with its heavy concentrations of black, Jewish and Hispanic voters.
Obama's coattails or nationwide dissatisfaction with the GOP administration, or both, also contributed to increasing the Democratic majorities in Congress.
While Florida voters were helping elect Obama, they also increased the numbers of Democrats in the state's delegation to Congress.
Democrats previously held nine of the state's 25 U.S. House seats. They lost one Tuesday, scandal-plagued Tim Mahoney of Palm Beach Gardens. But they took two others from Republican incumbents, unseating Reps. Tom Feeney of Oviedo and RicKeller of Orlando, and were threatening to unseat a third, Mario Diaz-Balart of Miami.
Nationally, Democrats increased their 236-seat majority they already held in the 435-seat House. They were hoping also to gain a filibuster-proof, 60-seat majority in the Senate.
No Tampa Bay area congressional seats changed hands.
But the disappointing GOP showing nationally almost immediately prompted a shake-up in the GOP's current House leadership, as Rep. Adam Putnam House of Bartow, announced he would step down as conference chairman, the chamber's No. 3 Republican.
House Republicans have already scheduled new leadership elections for Nov. 17.
Florida's leading Democrats and hundreds of Obama volunteers gathered at a downtown Tampa hotel to celebrate Obama's win, and several said that win augurs well for their party's future in Florida.
It "provides the basis for building a strong foundation," said State Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink, widely considered Florida's rising Democratic star.
U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor of Tampa, an early Obama supporter, said the win means, "We are on the verge of a significant change in this society."
That sentiment was shared by hundreds of campaign volunteers who gathered at the Tampa Marriott Waterside. The crowd, many of them college-age, erupted when the networks called the election for Obama.
"He speaks to us in our own language," said Matt Coppens, president of the University of South Florida Democrats.
High-level Republicans were notably absent from the McCain campaign's main election-night gathering Tuesday at a St. Petersburg Carillon Park Hilton.
Gov. Charlie Crist was in St. Petersburg but did not attend.
The crowd, which peaked about 300, began to thin after results of local races were announced, and thinned further when Fox News proclaimed Florida as "too close to call" at about 10:30 p.m.
Pinellas County GOP Chairman Tony DiMatteo said he doesn't believe McCain's loss will harm Crist's re-election effort - but he said Crist might have made a difference in McCain's race.
"I have no doubt with Charlie Crist as the vice president nominee, we would have carried Florida," DiMatteo said.
Obama's victory caps a meteoric political rise for the mixed-race son of a broken marriage between a white college student whose family move from Kansas to Hawaii, and a fellow student from Kenya.He was reared largely by his mother's parents in Hawaii.
Starting out as a community organizer in Chicago, Obama later became a civil rights lawyer, then an Illinois state senator.
He won his U.S. Senate seat in 2004, and caught national attention that same year with a speech at the national Democratic convention.
He launched his bid for his party's presidential nomination less than three years later, eventually outdueling the widely presumed Democratic heir apparent, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.
During the campaign, he pressed an image as a change agent who would bring an end to the Iraq war and, later, as a calm and capable leader in the face of the Wall Street collapse.
McCain has two more years remaining in his current six-year Senate term.
The loss leaves a question mark regarding Palin's political future of his running mate.
Palin's populist appeal brought new excitement to the Republican ticket when McCain chose her, but she also drew criticism as inexperienced and unqualified.
As national polls projected a McCain loss late in the race, it was widely speculated that she would emerge from a loss as a party leader and possible 2012 presidential contender.
Polls in Florida had shown Obama ahead in the final days of the race, but by only about two percentage points, close to the final outcome.
The outcome makes it appear that Obama's campaign was able to match the vaunted voter turnout machine used by Republicans in the past several election cycles. Democrats have said that may give them hope for better performance in the future in statewide races.
Prior to Election Day, estimates of voter turnout nationally ranged as high as 140 million, compared to 121 million who voted four years ago.
About 38 percent of Florida's 11.2 million voters cast ballots before Election Day, either by early voting or absentee ballots.
A computer analysis by the Orlando Sentinel during the week indicated that 22 percent of those voters were black, even though only 13 percent of the state's voters are black.
Election Day capped another tumultuous presidential election season in Florida.
The attempt to increase Florida's influence on the nomination battles by moving its primary up to Jan. 29 resulted in a yearlong controversy before the general election battle even started.
In the general election battle, Florida once more became the state's premier battleground. Obama vigorously pursued a "Florida strategy," just as Al Gore did in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004.
But he succeeded where they failed, winning the state that McCain had acknowledged repeatedly he had to win to become president.
Tampa Tribune Reporters Adam Emerson and Courtney Cairns Pastor contributed to this report. Tribune Reporter William March can be reached at 813-259-7761. Media General News Service Reporter Billy House can be reached at 202 662-7673.