TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

High Turnout Swings Florida, Nation, To Obama

ADVERTISEMENT

By WILLIAM MARCH and BILLY HOUSE

wmarch@tampatrib.com bhouse@tampatrib.com

Published: November 5, 2008

TAMPA - American voters took a stunning historical step Tuesday, electing Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois the nation's first black president - an event few adults would have said two years ago that they expected to see in their lifetimes.

Obama, 47, will become the nation's 44th chief executive.

He became the first Democratic presidential candidate 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.

"If there is anyone out there who 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.

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.

"The American people have spoken, and they have spoken clearly," McCain said in a concession speech delivered in Phoenix shortly after 11 p.m., before a crowd who booed whenever Obama's name was mentioned.

"I realize the special significance this has for African-Americans," McCain said. "Sen. Obama has achieved a great thing for himself and his country. I applaud him for it."

Obama is also the first sitting member of Congress elected president since John F. Kennedy in 1960.

Obama's victory in Florida was due in part to his performance in the crucial Interstate 4 corridor counties, the swing area of the state. In several counties throughout the region, he appeared late Tuesday to be piling up bigger vote totals than 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.

Obama also appeared to be outperforming 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, held by scandal-plagued Tim Mahoney of Palm Beach Gardens. But they took two others from Republican incumbents, unseating Reps. Tom Feeney of Oviedo and Ric Keller of Orlando, and were threatening to unseat a third, Mario Diaz-Balart of Miami.

Nationally, Democrats increased the 236-seat majority they held in the 435-seat House. They also hoped 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 of Bartow announced he would step down as conference chairman, the chamber's No. 3 Republican.

Rank-and-file House Republicans, eager to start efforts to rebuild their party when the new Congress is sworn in early next year, have already scheduled new leadership elections for Nov. 17.

'On Verge Of Significant Change'

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 gathering Tuesday at a St. Petersburg Carillon Park Hilton.

Rumors abounded first that Gov. Charlie Crist would attend, then that he would not. He had not appeared at the gathering by the time McCain and Obama made their speeches.

The crowd, which peaked at 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" about 10:30 p.m.

Pinellas County GOP Chairman Tony DiMatteo said he doesn't think 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.

From Hawaii To The White House

Obama's victory caps a meteoric political rise for the mixed-race son of a broken marriage between a white college student whose family moved 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, who ran for president in 2000 but lost the GOP nomination to George Bush, has two more years remaining in his current six-year Senate term.

The loss leaves a question mark in the political future of his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

Palin's populist appeal brought new excitement to the Republican ticket when McCain chose her, but she was criticized 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.

Matching The Republican Machine

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 a better performance in the future in statewide races.

Prior to election day, estimates of voter turnout nationally ranged as high as 140 million, compared with 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.

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.

The move ran afoul of rules of both national parties, which had rules against primaries held before Feb. 5. The result was controversies over whether, or how much, the Florida primary votes would count.

McCain's primary win in Florida, spurred by a last-minute endorsement from Gov. Crist, ended up propelling him to the nomination.

But Hillary Clinton's win over Obama in the Florida primary only set the stage for a bitter fight over whether the votes should count - an argument that wasn't settled until after it was clear Obama would be the nominee.

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.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT