By Tai Saint Louis
With sixty-percent of the votes counted, Barack Obama has made history, becoming the first African-American President of United States of America.
He is the 44th man to hold the highest office in American government. The Democratic candidate has carried at least 297 Electoral College votes, 27 more than needed to be declared President.
Within less than an hour, that projected number jumped to 338 votes for President-Elect Barack Obama, versus Republican candidate John Mc Cain's 155.
“If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dreams of our founders are alive in our time, who still questions the power of out democracy, tonight is your answer,” the President-Elect stated to supporters who had waited for hours in Chicago’s Grant Park for just this moment.
Shortly after the announcement, McCain addressed his supporters in his home state of Arizona, informing them that he had just concluded a conversation in which he congratulated his opponent.
“I won’t spend a moment of the future wondering what might have been,” said Senator McCain during his concession speech. “This campaign was, and will remain, the great honor of my life. My heart is filled with nothing but gratitude for the experience and to the American people for giving me a fair hearing before deciding that Senator Obama and my old friend Senator Joe Biden should have the honor of leading us for the next four years. I wish Godspeed to the man who was my opponent, and will now be my President.”
Exit polls across the country indicate that the largest constituency contributing to Senator Obama’s victory are 18-35 year olds who are brand loyal to Hip-Hop culture.
“The vision of the Hip-Hop generation and its young people is in full and glorious effect tonight,” Russell Simmons told AllHipHop.com. “While many older Americans, who marched and struggled so hard so Senator Obama could run for president of the United States never dared to believe in his candidacy's real potential, young people, particularly the hip-hop community, had faith and their imagination became our reality.”
The major television networks are all reporting that in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, Wisconsin and Connecticut, 18-29 year olds voted in record numbers, choosing Barack Obama as their next president.
"This is the proudest day of my life," exclaimed Sean "Diddy" Combs to AllHipHop.com shortly after the announcement.
This year, first time voters made up 11% of the millions of voters who cast a ballot either way.
"I just thank God that I am here today to see this," free speech/rap pioneer Luther Campbell told AllHipHop.com. "I knew this day was coming the first day I went to jail, when I was told white kids were buying my songs, I knew this day would come. I am so happy me and my wife gave to him [Obama] from day one. Today there is no more black and white in the U.S.A. We are one."
Early poll results indicated that more than 45 million voters elected the new president.
“Americans we did it,” an excited Killer Mike told AllHipHop.com. “We put aside fear, racist ideals and bigotry and we fulfilled an American dream. We fulfilled Martin's dream, a dream in which a nation of one group [that] was brought here shackled in servitude [and] has produced a man with the character to unify a struggling nation. A nation of former slaves and slave masters, a nation of former and current immigrants. He will be what Roosevelt, Kennedy and Lincoln were: a unifier for this great nation we call America. In the words of that great American philosopher Don King, 'God Bless America, Baby!'”