
CNN/Fox Projection: Obama wins presidential election. - Anon84
:)
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robg
Now that that's finally over, back to code! :)

~~~
jmtame
All the better when coding and knowing the guy you voted for understands what
network neutrality means.

~~~
mixmax
and intends to appoint a national CIO

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ojbyrne
And overall supports intellectualism.

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Prrometheus
And unionism, protectionism, and high taxes.

Oh, I'm sorry, did I stumble into the wrong party?

Where's the party for people that support an open country with strong privacy
rights and a dynamic business environment?

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jobeirne
The Libertarian party: we'll be waiting over there with the whack-jobs in the
Green party until America's ready.

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ksvs
When America's ready for your policies, the major parties will steal them
piecemeal.

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SwellJoe
That would be lovely, thanks.

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anthonyrubin
I disagree with Obama on many issues. I did not support McCain. It is
difficult to express how satisfied I am knowing that an intelligent human
being will once again occupy the White House.

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robg
Anyone else just hear the Cathedral and Bazaar reference on CNN? Amazing! A
Republican analyst comparing Obama's campaign to open source software and on a
major network.

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halo
It's on YouTube: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-4afdMalVA>

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ojbyrne
As I commented on another story, it was over (statistically) the minute Ohio
was projected. They just had to wait till polls closed on the west coast, so
they could use their exit polls from CA/OR/WA, which everybody on the planet
knew were Democrat.

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mightybyte
Yet another outcome correctly predicted by pg's "It's Charisma, Stupid" essay.
Although the need to nominate only charismatic candidates hasn't sunk in.

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will_robinson
Something keeps bothering me about charismatic leaders with revolutionary
views and overwhelming mandates in times of severe economic trouble.

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nostrademons
I'm encouraged by the humility he showed in his victory speech. His mood seems
entirely different than, say, Bush's "Mission Accomplished" Iraq stunt.

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hugh
I didn't see his victory speech this time, but I did see his victory speech in
the primaries:

"...I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look
back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide
care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the
rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal..."

which at the very least suggests "humility" isn't necessarily deeply
ingrained.

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Retric
He was still trying to get elected at that point in time and it's hard to drum
up support when you say "aww shucks" (?sp) when your given the spot light.

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brandonkm
I don't think there was really any doubt that Obama was going to win. Over
this election season we witnessed the best and most technologically advanced
campaign ever. Not only on the ground game level, but on all levels. Cheers to
President Obama for running an excellent campaign.

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dmpayton
President _Elect_ Obama. He's been _elected_ president, but he won't _be_
president until January.

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Eliezer
Wait... did the System just... _work_?

Can it _do_ that?

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SwellJoe
It just needed a good smack. But, remember, as with computers and women, one
smack is maintenance, two is abuse.

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mstevens
I think smacking women once is pretty dodgy, let alone twice.

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yummyfajitas
The rule is simple: only on the ass and never in anger.

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mstevens
Well there's an obvious exception for "If they like that sort of thing". But
otherwise...

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fallentimes
Ok great - we've all had our fix. No more politricks on HN for 4 more years.
:)

~~~
astrec
Actually the campaign for re-election begins around 18 months after
inauguration. Hopefully the mods keep HN relatively politics free for the next
4 years.

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ars
Since the tendency of the kids on the internet is to criticize the
establishment, do you think digg and reddit and sites like that are going to
start leaning the other way?

For the first time in weeks I saw a story critical of obama on digg.

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kajecounterhack
I doubt it -- the kids on the internet criticize things that deserve
criticism. Unless Obama does something worth criticizing, I doubt we'll see
much change from what it looks like today.

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Prrometheus
Did you just seriously make a comment that implicitly states that Obama has
done no wrong?

(FISA, PATRIOT II, Bailout, war funding, VP wrote the PATRIOT Act and invented
the "Drug Czar", etc.)

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kajecounterhack
Lol no, I just meant he hasn't done any wrong as president yet. (And the
bailout...I don't know, I didn't see it as a bad move from my limited
knowledge, but a lot of economists are angsty about it, I know so I don't have
a real position on it.)

I voted for McCain. There's plenty that I don't agree with Obama about, but
seeing as the media hasn't touched Barack Obama very much (including the
internet which is currently in exuberant joy) regarding any..."mistakes", it
doesn't look likely that it will change until he does anything substantial.

How do you criticize a guy who isn't even in the office yet? Lets hope he does
a good job.

Congratulations, Barack.

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kirubakaran
Obama wins... FCC opens up white spaces... Business methods patents curbed...
Man! Too much good stuff!

~~~
Prrometheus
I wonder if an Obama FCC would have taken this deregulatory step.

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DanielBMarkham
From someone who didn't vote for you, congrats Obama!

A couple of sources called it (really) once Ohio flipped.

Now it gets interesting. I would beg Obama voters to follow along and read
multiple sources as things go forward.

I love politics.

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delackner
I would beg all of you to read a non-US news website regularly. You could do
worse than the economist and the BBC.

Watching the way the rest of the world sees the US makes it a little easier to
see the inanity of so much US political news coverage. (And likewise that of
any other country's local political news, as covered by outside sources).

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alex_c
I was watching the live feed on the BBC News website. It wasn't great, but I
don't think I could've survived watching CNN instead.

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delackner
Indeed, I tuned into CNN's live feed around when Ohio was getting called, and
I was welcomed by first a few minutes of nonstop ads (for CNN no less), then a
room full of people having "deep thoughts" about nothing in particular. This
is the station I watched, riveted, during the first iraq war?! Sad.

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mrtron
I think it's going to be a huge inspiration for the world.

Seeing recent female and minority leaders being elected across the world shows
we finally are moving towards reducing discrimination.

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unalone
Fox News is calling it. That means it's safely over.

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markessien
I really doubted that this would happen. But it actually did, and I think it
will really make a difference. This is America sort of saying to the world -
hey, those war mongering guys were never us. This is the real us - the guy who
thinks, the guy who does not fit the mould, the guy who never wanted a war.

In so many ways, the U.S has shown how agile it is, and why it's number 1.

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SwellJoe
Why did you doubt it?

About a month ago, it became apparent to me that it was going to be a blowout.
I've been confident Obama would win for several months...but it wasn't until
the desperation in the McCain campaign began to show through so clearly
(Palin, in particular), that I realized how badly he was going to lose. As of
a few days ago, I was expecting a Reagan-style landslide, and I wasn't
disappointed.

And, I question the "America is number 1" assertion. Number 1 in what
competition? We're behind in several areas I consider vitally important:
economic freedom, freedom of speech, per-capita income, education, and the
list goes on...

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ricree
It may be just a speech, but that acceptance address was one heck of a way to
start things off. Despite a strong (though very much appreciated) message of
hope, he was very clear on the magnitude of the problem and the effort it was
going to take to solve it. He seemed to touch on a lot of issues that I felt
were critical to the future of the country. Energy and environmental
challenges, getting the economy back to stable ground, healing political
divides and tempering extremism; these are all issues that need to be tackled,
and I am happy that he addressed them here.

Hopefully his policies will live up to the talk, but if nothing else I believe
that his message alone will go a long way towards helping improve things. It
seems all too rare these days for a politician to say that yes, things will be
difficult and dirty, and there are going to need to be sacrifices from
everyone, but despite all the hardships we really can work to build a better
future.

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hugh
_Hopefully his policies will live up to the talk, but if nothing else I
believe that his message alone will go a long way towards helping improve
things._

Never forget: the unintended consequences of any government policy almost
always wind up being far more significant than the intended consequences.

This is what I fear most.

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redrobot5050
You've got citations to back up your fears, don' you? I've love to see the
horrible, horrible unintended consequence of seatbelt laws.

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wildwood
Or the GI bill. If only we had known! :)

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hugh
Y'know, I did say "almost always".

Seatbelt laws? Yeah, I can't think of much there, though I'm sure there's
somebody out there who'll argue that seatbelt laws promote worse driving, and
there have probably been some particular crashes in which seatbelts have led
to rather than prevented injuries.

The GI Bill? Actually in my limited understanding that probably wound up
having consequences well beyond what was originally intended, and it's likely
that most of those consequences were on balance good rather than bad. But it
doesn't make them any less unintended. It wrought major changes in higher
education and in the demographics of cities vs suburbs, which were probably
not on the minds of those who originally proposed the bill.

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andreyf
Let the disappointment begin!

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ojbyrne
I'm so disappointed not to be in the US tonight :-(.

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palish
Yeah man, it was great to be here! I, like, went to bed and stuff. Totally
wild.

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dgordon
I disagree with him on a lot of things, but he's right on this. The United
States of America is the greatest nation in the world, the nation where all
things are possible, the nation that, for every time we've fallen short, keeps
saying "Yes we can!" Yes -- we can do justice, yes -- we can be better, yes --
we can fulfill the promise that all men are created equal.

Govern it well, Barack Obama.

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potatolicious
Looking at the results of Prop 8, California seems to disagree on "all men are
created equal".

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sgrove
Aye, the saddest news in a long while. I wonder what can be done now to work
against such a large setback...

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rsheridan6
Wait a few years for the demographics to change some more and repeal it by
referendum.

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trickjarrett
AP calls Florida for Obama, if he didn't win before when CNN called it,
Florida will guarantee it.

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ksvs
What a relief. I'm sure he won't turn out to be perfect, but won't it be nice
to have a president we can actually take seriously?

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maximilian
I wish I could celebrate more but I have to get up early and do homework all
tomorrow.

We did have a few celebratory beers however.

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thomasmallen
You heard it here first!

Please, let's keep it to computing and startups and other infrequent topics.

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globalrev
Congrats!

America is defineately not nr 1 anymore but maybe now you can get back to
being so!

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trapper
Well done America! The rest of the world was holding their breath!

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josefresco
Apparently not Russia, who took the opportunity to spout more crap about
Georgia and blah blah blah

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tortilla
YES WE DID!

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leonroy
There is no place for your enthusiasm here. This is not reddit ;)

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brentr
Anyone concerned what this will do for innovation? How could an entrepreneur
vote for Obama? He has clearly stated that he wants to "redistribute" the
wealth. In my eyes, that's the essence of socialism.

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redrobot5050
You've been paying taxes all your life, and that, in essence, is not
socialism. Its called Progressive taxation. Many states in the US have their
state income tax set up this way (the more you make, they more they take. In
state that do not tax that way, they often tax you based off property
ownership.) and they are not socialist.

I'm also not concerned what it will do for innovation (whatever that means)
because historically the economy and stock market do better under Democrats
than under Republicans. George W. Bush has yet to create one single net job,
and he has a mere 75 days to do.

