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In print | Published November 6, 2008 — Updated December 05, 2008 09:57

On the night of Tuesday, November 4, 2008, Swarthmore students clustered around televisions and computer screens across campus – in dorm lounges, in Paces, in Tarble. Hours of anxious waiting and second guessing finally culminated in screaming, dancing and singing across campus as the West Coast poll results came in: Barack Obama had been elected the next president of the United States. To Obama’s supporters on Swarthmore’s campus and across the country, the outcome of the election marks an unprecedented transcendence of partisan, racial and geographical differences.

After winning the election, Obama opened his victory speech with an affirmation of the opportunities available to all participants in the American democratic process. “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 to a crowd of 125,000 supporters in Chicago’s Grant Park.

Obama’s promise of a post-partisan society appealed not only to the Democrats on campus, but to Republican students as well. David Pupkin ’09, who helped found the current chapter of the College Republicans, acknowledged that Obama’s victory says something powerful about the state of American politics. “This is the revitalization of the American Dream. People around the world can say, ‘I too can watch my child become President of the United States by the sheer fact that if they work hard enough and have the skill, anything is possible.’ The United States is again the paragon of possibility,” Pupkin said.

Dani Noble ’12 captured the combination of euphoria and incredulity that many students expressed over the course of the evening. “It’s surrealism,” Noble said. “People are overcome by the election, by the hope and potential for this country to be the nation that we would like it to be.”

Many students were won over by Obama’s promise to restore a broken political system. “Four years ago, I lost faith in my country, and today it was restored almost completely,” Margot Adams ’10 said.

The success of Obama’s campaign has been widely attributed to his unique ability to construct a coalition of disparate demographic blocs. Referring to the diversity of his supporters in his victory speech, Obama said, “It’s the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled.”

No candidate with a background as diverse as Obama’s has ever been elected to the country’s highest office. Early in his candidacy, many observers questioned whether Obama could overcome historically entrenched racial barriers. The candidate proved skeptics wrong on Tuesday night and his ability to dismantle racial barriers was inspiring to many students. “This man is biracial, his middle name is Hussein, and he’s President of the United States. That makes me smile,” Ali Farnos Wilker ’11 said. Brigette Davis ’10 captured the perception that the election’s outcome reflects the beginning of a new era when she said, “America has transcended; it has reached a new plane of existence.”

Although his campaign did not emphasize Obama’s racial identity as an African-American candidate, the election of a biracial president marked an important turning point in American history. “We’re studying the civil rights movement in class, and when the camera panned to an old, black man, and he was crying, I understood. These people lived in an America where they were not real people. They risked their lives forty years ago when they walked through the streets singing that they will overcome, and now they have,” Farnos-Wilker said.

Noah Lang ’10 said that his mother offered an interesting historical perspective on the election. “My mother grew up in the 1950’s in Tennessee. The first thing that she messaged to me tonight was, ‘I remember segregated water fountains!’ That was the first thing to her mind,” Lang said.

At Swarthmore, the reaction to this election was elation. An Obama cardboard cut-out went crowd-surfing, Sixteen Feet sang a rendition of The Star-Spangled Banner, and McCain was serenaded off of his speech platform by masses of students singing Steam’s “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye.” Students were still singing, yelling and dancing in celebration hours after Obama’s victory speech.
Upon the announcement of the election results, Luke Rampersad ’10 said, “I just started singing and dancing. I called my parents and made up a song about Obama. I just started yelling and smiling, and I haven’t stopped smiling since.” Brigette Davis ’10 said, “I lost my mind. I think I actually blacked out. I ran over the entire campus in about ten minutes.”

Andrew Loh ’10, an international student from Malaysia, could not vote in the election, but was nonetheless blown away by its outcome. “I just stood up and stared and took it all in, because this is a part of Swarthmore … I was compelled to receive it, to perceive it, to just sink myself and immerse myself in that feeling. It’s a feeling of solidarity, of happiness, of hope, of change, of clichés, of Disney.”

Many Swarthmore students campaigned extensively for Obama and felt that his victory was their victory, too. Obama himself said that the campaign “drew strength … from the millions of Americans who volunteered and organized and proved that more than two centuries later a government of the people, by the people and for the people has not perished from the Earth.”

Molly Weston ’10, president of the College Democrats, noted that college students were extraordinarily active in this election. “We’re college students. We have the energy to go out and stand on our feet and knock on doors. People that have never been involved in an election before are really coming out. They’re taking the time to make a difference,” Weston said.

Speaking of the power of canvassing, Executive Director and former president of the College Democrats Daniel Leigh ’09 said, “Door-to-door voter canvassing can increase voter turn-out by seven percent. It’s about one citizen going out and talking to other citizens. Door-to-door, person-to-person voter contact. It’s far and away the most effective contact.”

After the election of Obama, Noble, who also did canvassing, said, “I think everyone who had a part in the election, in canvassing, the phone bank, feels like they personally won tonight. Obviously a lot of it’s a wash, but I can think of two to three people that I convinced to vote for Barack Obama who wouldn’t have otherwise, and to me that’s powerful.”

Obama’s victory has significant implications for America’s standing in the international community. Speaking of Obama’s election, Jess Engebretson ’09 said, “I hope it means that the course we’re going on as a country can change for the better. It’ll change the perception of America in the world, the place of America in the world, and America’s ability to act in the world.”

Loh offered his perspective as an international student. “The world’s going to be very happy. His foreign experience definitely shaped him in his convictions, his ideals and his values. He’s sympathetic to how other people think and feel. And you can see that in how he’s running now. He’s running on a platform of compromise and consensus. He’s not only the Democratic nominee, but also the world’s nominee,” Loh said.

Now that he has won the presidency, Obama faces the challenge of making good on his campaign promises in spite of the accelerating economic downturn and present U.S. involvement in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Obama acknowledged these obstacles, saying, “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. I promise you: We as a people will get there.”

Katie Schaffer ’12 said she has no illusions about Obama’s progressivism and said that “people looking for significant change” may be disappointed by Obama’s moderate stance on many issues. “First of all, he’s inheriting an awful state of affairs, and second of all, he’s a moderate,” Schaffer said.

Obama acknowledges the challenges that lie ahead, but said he does not believe they are insurmountable. In his victory speech, Obama said that a new approach to domestic politics and international affairs is essential to overcoming adverse conditions — and he promised to bring this new approach to Washington. “Change has come to America,” Obama said in his speech, summing up the momentous outcome of a fiercely contested race.

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