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Senator Barack Obama acheived a historic milestone tonight and is now the President-Elect of the United States. He was as gracious in his victory speech as Senator John McCain was earlier in making his concession. A positive tone that has been absent for too long in recent election cycles.

I voted for Senator McCain. I am not a supporter of President-Elect Obama but I hope that Republicans and conservatives will start their period of loyal opposition by modeling the respect for the new president that President Bush was seldom accorded. There will time enough for rough political battles in the future without sinking into partisan rancor now. The other side ran the better race and our immediate priority should be to get our own house in order. There are  reasons the GOP just was clobbered that cannot be waved away that go beyond media bias or the political skills of Barack Obama.

Congratulations to those Obama supporters and Democrats in the ZP readership, it’s your night tonight as well.

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This explains a lot:

Ganz says that his and Wageman’s training system works well for the Obama campaign, because it’s designed to channel the enthusiasm of voters who are emotionally inspired by orators such as Obama. This appeal to the right brain contrasts with most of the recent Democratic political campaigns, which have appealed to voters’ logic by selling concepts and policies.

Obama organizers, and some volunteers, enter the campaign machine through weekend training sessions called “Camp Obama.”

The sessions vary in size from groups of 40 to more than 300, held variously at the campaign’s Chicago headquarters, in rented office spaces, union halls, churches or on college campuses.  In addition to leadership and motivation training, the camp features storytelling sessions, where the volunteers are broken up into small teams organized by congressional district. Each member of these groups is asked to tell personal stories in two minutes, in the same format Obama used in his 2004 speech at the Democratic National Convention.   

“Ultimately, your story should move people to specific action by painting a detailed picture of how things might be different if we act, giving us hope that if we act now we can make real that different future,” explains the training manual.  

Hat tip to Socialmedian.

All that is missing is Alan Alda reading from Robert Bly’s Iron John.

Went to vote early yesterday and the polling place was mobbed – so much so, that we gave up on the long lines and just went out to dinner. If this frenzy is indicative, then voter turnout is going to extremely high this year

This clip has a classic statement from Senator Barry Goldwater at the 1960 Republican Convention, which I think may be food for thought for all the conservatives of a general libertarian-pragmatic  bent who may be unhappy with the drift of the Republican Party.

And check out this post at Security and Liberty.