BARACK OBAMA 44TH U.S. PRESIDENT
PanARMENIAN.Net
05.11.2008 12:40 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Democrat Barack Obama captured the White House
on Tuesday after an extraordinary two-year election campaign,
defeating Republican John McCain to make history as the first black
U.S. president, Reuters reports
Obama will be sworn in as the 44th U.S. president on January 20,
2009 and will face a crush of immediate challenges, from tackling an
economic crisis to ending the war in Iraq and trying to overhaul the
U.S. health care system.
McCain’s hopes for a surprise victory evaporated with losses in
a string of key battleground states led by the big prizes of Ohio
and Florida, the states that sent Democrats to defeat in the last
two elections.
The win by Obama, son of a black father from Kenya and white mother
from Kansas, marked a milestone in U.S. history. It came 45 years after
the height of the civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King.
"It’s been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did
on this day, at this defining moment, change has come to America,"
Obama, 47, told 125,000 ecstatic supporters gathered in Chicago’s
Grant Park to celebrate.
"The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not
get there in one year or even one term, but America – I have never
been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there," he said.
Obama won at least 338 Electoral College votes, far more than the 270
needed. With results in from more than two-thirds of U.S. precincts,
he led McCain by 51 percent to 48 percent in the popular vote.
Obama promised to ease the country’s sharp political divisions and
work for those voters who did not support him.
A first-term Illinois senator, Obama led sweeping Democratic victories
that expanded the party’s majorities in both chambers of Congress
and marked an emphatic rejection of President George W. Bush’s eight
years of leadership.
McCain, a 72-year-old Arizona senator and former Vietnam War prisoner,
called Obama to congratulate him and praised his rival’s inspirational
and precedent-shattering campaign.
"We have come to the end of a long journey," McCain told supporters. "I
urge all Americans who supported me to join me in not just
congratulating him but offering our next president our goodwill."