Special Secretary for the Young Trustee Process:

• Amanda Turner – 757 votes
• Ben Getson – 628 votes

Freshman Class Senators:

• Academic Affairs: Ari Ruffer and Kenneth Gould
• Athletics and Campus Services: Cameron Oswalt and Douglas Hanna
• Durham and Regional Affairs: Chris Brown and Gordon Wilson
• Student Affairs: Molly Superfine and Gurdane Bhutani

New Junior Class Senators:

• Academic Affairs: Dmitri Jean and Matt Stansky
• Athletics and Campus Services: Ben Bergmann and Kendyl Tash
• Durham and Regional Affairs: Lauren Kottis and Danielle Starks

New Senior Class Senators:

• Academic Affairs: Daniel Lewin and Kristen Yang
• Student Affairs: Steven McAlpine

Michael Naclerio/The Chronicle

Students gathered on the Chapel Quad friday night to remember the victims of the recent election violence in Tehran.  To view more of Michael Naclerio’s photos, please check out a photo slideshow by following this link.

I wanted to make a quiet critique of blind liberalism that pervades our campus, but it turned into this. I stand behind the original argument, that most of us are so narrowly left-leaning that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy (Republicans dare not enter the Democratic gauntlet, we don’t learn about the Republicans, we become more liberal, and so on). The problem with my article is that given limited space, I had to engage in intellectual triage and attack the larger of several problems. Since there are more liberals on campus, I figured the correct route was to critique the liberals for their lack of knowledge beyond the presidential race. There’s much more that merits criticism. Here they are, in no particular order:

1) College Republicans. They are libertarians pretending to be Republicans for political expediency. The GOP is a big-tent party and has been for a long time. That was a good strategy and certainly one that garnered a lot of votes for Reagan and George W. Bush. A party that can simultaneously uphold the tenets of small government for taxes, big government for national defense, and huge government for social issues is sure to pull broad coalitions together. Here are some key baggage that College Republicans won’t remind you come with their party:

a) The Christian right, a core demographic of the big tent. This means the GOP is often in favor of the government stepping on your toes if you’re gay, a woman having an abortion, or a teacher who believes in evolution.

b) Massive defense projects. This, children, is called government spending. You normally don’t like that. Obviously, neither side can or will cut the defense budget substantially, but at least the Democrats pay for it (don’t fight it: the last three “fiscal conservatives” ran up massive debt, whereas the last “tax-and-spend” Democrat balanced the budget).

c) The GOP has been the vanguard of political scandal, rather than political integrity which they claim. Actions speak louder than words, and the party of Scooter Libby, Ted Stevens, Tom DeLay, Mark Foley, and Larry Craig should walk the walk if it’s going to talk the talk.

John McCain didn’t call himself a maverick for nothing. He was a lone ranger who acted on real conservative principles and then mostly abandoned them during the campaign. He’s an admirable exception to the rule. But now that McCain is not the winner, there is no way you can claim the GOP is reflecting your interests if you call yourself a conservative. I’ll say it again because I don’t want you to forget—THE GOP IS NOT THE PARTY OF SMALL GOVERNMENT. IT’S THE PARTY OF SMALL GOVERNMENT IN A FEW INSTANCES, AND HUGE GOVERNMENT IN MANY OTHERS. YOU ARE LIBERTARIANS WHO CALL YOURSELVES REPUBLICANS FOR POLITICAL EXPEDIENCY.

2) Sour grapes. Obama is not a Communist. He is not George McGovern. Just because you recently read Atlas Shrugged doesn’t mean a liberal president means a secret police holding a gun to your head forcing you to pay taxes. Shut up, clean your party up, enjoy your subsidized healthcare and improved international reputation, and talk to me in 2010.

3) Obamatrons. People who voted for Obama without being able to answer simple questions about his policy platform are even worse than college Republicans. Hope and change are not policies. This is pretty well articulated here.

4) Straight-party tickets. There are two irksome things about this. First, based on data from the North Carolina State Board of Elections, about 44,000 people in North Carolina cast ballots without voting for president. For those keeping track, that’s more than twice Obama’s margin of victory (about 14,000, also an SBOE estimate). That’s embarrassing. If the election came down to our fine state, we would be nationally viewed as 2008′s Florida—the state whose boldfaced ineptitude changed the outcome of the election.

5) Bicyclists who think they’re cars. If you can’t also go 40 mph, don’t block my way.

That is all.

For starters, they are both globally and historically exciting. The amount of international faith Obama has inspired is actually kind of surprising. Also there are these notions of democracy which have been reaffirmed by these monumental events. Obama’s victory has been hailed as a testament to American democracy, the likes of which we haven’t seen in at least the last eight years.

But what exactly is so exciting about Obama becoming the president-elect? Yes, Obama’s tunneling through the political-racial barrier is a major historical phenomenon, but the common misconception was that this was inevitable.

Personally, I imagined it was going to be a piecemeal victory. I imagined a slow, but steady approach, with the American people favoring black candidates in Congress. Instead, the civil rights community has been wailing on the front door of democracy, and Obama has walked around and found the a side door unlocked. This definitely caught me by surprise. When I was in high school, I concluded I would not live to see the first black president, which is really kind of sad considering that I should be too young to be so cynical.

It’s fantastic to be in college experiencing this monumental event. It truly feels like we are “living history” both in the personal and historical sense. I can already imagine what it will be like for future generations to read about this moment in textbooks, and I pity them for not having gone through it themselves.

Jesse Hilaire
Trinity ’09

Sen. Barack Obama and Durham Mayor Bill Bell embrace after Obama gives a speech at NCCU - Kevin Hwang/Chronicle File Photo

Almost exactly a year ago, a young, charismatic Senator from Illinois came to North Carolina for the first time, right here in Durham. Although certainly not unknown, he was only one in a crowded field of Democratic presidential hopefuls. Catapulted to fame by a stirring speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, many nevertheless believed that his paper-thin resume and lack of clout would spell an early death for the upstart campaign, especially when standing against the considerable resources and powers thrown into the presidential bid of Sen. Hillary Clinton.

That Senator from Illinois was of course Barack Obama. Even then, his energy and so-called new approach to politics attracted large crowds, at this particular juncture at NCCU. At the time, he spoke of many of his policy proposals, but predominantly the increasingly unpopular and expensive War in Iraq, an issue that was at the forefront of headlines and most voter’s minds. How many of  us could have predicted then that the economy would have collapsed by the time Election Day finally rolled around a year later, transforming the electoral landscape and eclipsing all else? How many of us knew then with certainty that Barack Obama would not only win the Democratic nomination, but be the first black man to ascend to the presidency? And how many would have been able to tell you then that North Carolina, once an unequivocally conservative state, would in the next year become a battleground state, commanding both major party candidate’s attention and resources? In the newsroom, I can tell you, not many.

Obama’s appearance in Durham kicked off a tumultuous year-long campaign with numerous twists and turns, all of which The Chronicle had the privilege of covering. The first of many surprises was North Carolina’s primary being of real significance in the extraordinarily long and arduous battle between Clinton and Obama for the Democratic nomination, even after 35 states had already made their own decisions.

Obama’s double digit victory in North Carolina’s May 6 primary (unfortunately, after the The Chronicle ceased production for the summer) and his narrow loss in Indiana on the same day ultimately helped him seal the deal. He celebrated that night as the polls closed with a beer in a bar in downtown Raleigh, mixing and mingling with supporters. McCain, already the presumptive Republican nominee after beating out rivals Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee and Rudy Guiliani, handily won his primary in the state with 74 percent of the vote.

The race in the Tar Heel State, however, was far from over. As both the Democratic and Republican candidates accepted their party’s nominations at their conventions in Denver and St. Paul, with a fair number of Dukies in attendance, their campaigns began in earnest. We watched from a distance as the polls went up and down, running mates were selected and controversies were ignited and diffused. And as the summer waned, it became clear that 2008 would be a very different election season for North Carolina. Obama slowly but surely began opening offices, forcing the McCain camp to follow suit, the airwaves saw an exponential increase in the number of political ads as Election Day drew near, and even the most seasoned pundits scratched their heads regarding what was afoot in a state that had not gone blue since former president Jimmy Carter defeated incumbent Gerald Ford in 1976 in the wake of the Watergate scandal.

Take this little gem from Republican strategist Marc Rotterman from a June interview with The Chronicle:

“It’s not a practical strategy that Barack is trying to employ…. Barack’s values and beliefs are out of tune with the average North Carolinian.”

On campus, too, nevertheless, evidence of the heightened political consciousness could be seen in efforts by the Duke Dems and College Republicans to get students to register in the state, where their vote would matter. Volunteers flooded Durham, banging on doors and again, as always, stressing the importance of this year and this state.

We watched with astonishment as Obama, playing the state’s changing demographics to his advantage, slowly eroded McCain’s lead in the polls. With the economic collapse on Wall Street directing voters’ attention away from social issues and to their shrinking wallets, the fact became unavoidable: North Carolina had emerged as a surprise battleground, its 15 electoral votes any one’s game, in what all heralded as an historic election year, one which would yield either the nation’s first black president or its first woman vice-president.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin speaks at ECU - Maya Robinson/The Chronicle

At The Chronicle, we found ourselves astonished to be driving to all corners of the state to cover the candidates themselves as the leaves reddened and the campaigns showered our once-neglected state with ample amounts of attention. In Greensboro. In Greenville. In Wilmington. In Fayetteville. In Concord. In Raleigh. In Charlotte.

Sens. Barack Obama and Joe Biden in Greensboro - Zachary Tracer/The Chronicle

Sen. John McCain speaks in Concord - Chase Olivieri/The Chronicle

Sen. Barack Obama speaks in Charlotte Nov. 3 - Chase Olivieri/The Chronicle

On campus, for the first time, an early voting site allowed a record number of students to cast their ballots with ease and convenience. The excitement leading up to Election Day built to a fever pitch, with celebs and campaign representatives alike making appearances to sway those last-few undecided voters. The youth vote was again given a significant amount of importance tempered with skepticism that indeed the 18 to 24 block would turn out at the polls.

A large group of Democratic politicians visited Duke - Maya Robinson/The Chronicle

By now, the conclusion of the Nov. 4 election has been well-publicized. Not only did Obama emerge the victor in the nation, but in North Carolina as well, a conclusion no one could have predicted for the Tar Heel State a mere eight weeks ago. Furthermore, all indicators suggest that competitive party politics in North Carolina are here to stay.

Covering the 2008 election as a Local/National editor was a college journalist’s dream–to be standing elbow to elbow with Associated Press and New York Times reporters, recording the same events, giving voice to the same moments. We were presented with the incredible opportunity to not only witness history but to document it, in our own words. Even at the expense of a few tenths of our GPA’s and countless hours of lost sleep, it was exhilirating, albeit exhausting, and worth every minute.