For me the most powerful image of the night was Obama’s and Biden’s families on the stage together after Obama’s acceptance speech in Chicago. There we saw black and white children hugging and celebrating together on stage, interacting with a comfort that would have inspired beatings, or worse, in the living memory of many who voted. These children will walk the halls of the White House, not as tourists, but as residents. These children’s lives are one giant step closer to the dream espoused in the Civil Rights Movement, in the Suffragette Movement, in the Emancipation Proclamation, and in the Declaration of Independence. These children represent our future, as do all children.

Obama was elected on the promise that he can help us make a better world for all our children. Now we all have an obligation to work with the people we elected to make good on those promises.

Thanks to the great folks that came over to watch the returns with us, and for all the friends and family that we shared this with on-line and on the phone. It was an honor to have shared this historic night with you all.

That doesn’t mean he can’t still at least one more great service for his country.

He can try to return the Republican Party to their senses. The party of Eisenhower and Lincoln has been hijacked by wingnuts who would paint me a commie wacko for believing bizarre ideas like women and blacks are people, education and science are key to the health and future of the country, genuine love and affection is a precious thing wherever we find it, the founding fathers meant it when they emphasized the separation of church and state, and the federal government has a vital role in investing in the future of the country. These aren’t radical leftist ideas – these are ideas that were the bread and butter of Eisenhower style Republicans, ideas that grow directly from the ideals laid out by the founding fathers. The Republican Party, however, has been carted off into crazy land by deeply fundamentalist, irrational, anti-competence nutjobs.

And it’s not just me that feels that way. Colin Powell is one of the most articulate and best known Republican defectors in this election, but he’s just the public face of a much bigger discontent with their party. Tonight the Republican party suffered a shattering defeat tonight on almost every front, and alarm bells must be ringing up and down conservative corridors all across the country.

I’m no Republican, I’m absolutely thrilled with the results tonight, and I’m a lot more likely to vote for a donkey than an elephant. I do, however, have a vested interest in a healthy, vigorous democracy, as do we all. And that isn’t best served by a single dominant party with only a crippled opposition party. Just as importantly, if the Republican party can be brought to its senses, it allows a much more realistic spectrum of political discussion which is vital as we face a broad array of shifting challenges.

So McCain can make yet another valuable contribution to our country. He can help fix one of the two major political parties in this country at a point where they desperately need the help. With the help of defectors like Powell he can bring together the sensible folks in his party, the people that can do basic math, balance budgets, value competence over cronyism, and focus on progress instead of division.

McCain’s concession speech was a gracious view of the man that inspired so much enthusiasm 8 years ago and across his career. I hope he can make something good out of the the bitter lessons of this election and the last eight years, and work to heal his party (although maybe not too quickly).

Both Obama and McCain have important work to do, and we all benefit if they succeed. Wish them well.

The first is a really fine piece of election season film making (thank to Pharyngula for the tip):

Favorite quotes: Cheney reminding us that “Some people lie” (speaking from experience there?) and Pat Buchanan saying that McCain will “make Cheney look like Gandhi”. Wow – that’s something I really don’t want to see.

Then, after you’ve found the tissue box or finished smashing the crap out of the couch cushion in anger and frustration, you can lighten up with this bit of silliness courtesy of Joe R.:

I think it’s arguably a bit long (they felt like they had to get the whole lecture into one song), and watching the “dancers” gets a bit painful in places. Still, it’s well written and fun, and I like the chorus. It’s cool to see people trying different ways of getting the word out and, for better or worse, I suspect that more people will learn a little physics from this sort of thing than from “normal” sources. There are 34,925 people following the Mars Phoenix lander on Twitter, and over 4,000 (as of today) following CERN. Hopefully all this is a cool sign for the future of a populace engaged in science!

And this sort of stuff really makes certain academics nervous — they worry that somehow the only way they’ll keep their job is to do this kind of thing in class — and that’s gotta be worth something.

It’s probably old news for some of you that Lawrence Lessig is considering running for Congress, but I only just had time to watch Lessig’s video, and I definitely want to put in a plug for it, and for him, and for his possible campaign. Lessig has written some excellent books (Arne Kildegaard and I have used both Free culture and The future of ideas in our interdisciplinary network economics course), and is a wonderfully clear thinker with a powerful grasp of what’s necessary to effect change (rather than just make noise). (He’s been a key player in the Creative Commons movement, for example.)

I couldn’t claim to have done the sort of homework needed to make any concrete statements on his policies or particulars, but I can say that he’s a smart, effective guy who’s trying to address real and important problems. And that seems to be a pretty good pedigree for someone running for Congress. I quite like the message of the video as well, and think it would be quite fascinating to see him take on an extremely experienced and successful (his words) politician.

I’m also impressed by his willingness to actually stick his neck out, because I know that I find that hard. I’ve thought, for example, about running for school board in Morris, but I’ve never quite screwed up the courage to try it. It’s obviously very important, and I care a lot about (and frequently disagree with) the Board’s actions. I also know, however, that it would take a lot of time to do well, and probably be pretty frustrating (you’ll never make everyone happy, and there’s likely to be a shortage of easy answers). Thus nothing has actually happened (at least so far).

So well done to Lessig, and best wishes.

Who should you vote for?

Mike Gravel				114
Barack Obama				109
Hillary Clinton				57
John McCain	-12
Ron Paul	-33
Mike Huckabee	-123

You expected: Barack Obama
Your recommendation: Mike Gravel

Party: Democratic
Born: 1930, Springfield, Massachusetts
Family: Married twice. Two children and four grandchildren
Career: US Army; Special Agent in the Counter Intelligence Corps; taxi driver; barman; brakeman; property developer
Political career: 3rd Speaker of the Alaska House of Representatives, 1965-6; US Senator from Alaska 1969-1981. Environment and Public Works and Finance and Interior Committees; chaired the Energy, Water Resources, and Environmental Pollution subcommittees
Hot topic: Fair tax
Did you know? Born to French-Canadian immigrant parents, Marie Bourassa and Alphonse Gravel; Mike spoke only French until he was seven years old
Supported by: Ralph Nader

As far as those silly candidate like things go, Obama pretty much cleaned up in Stevens Country, mirroring his success in Minnesota in general:

It’s hard for me to make a lot of immediate sense out of the results nationwide as they seem extremely scattered. One thing that I think is interesting, though, is that Clinton only carried more than 60% in one state (Arkansas – her previous home), while Obama carried 8 states with more than 60%, two of which were over 70% and one (Idaho) with a whopping 80%! OK, I realize that 80% of the handful of people in Idaho aren’t going to swing a national presidential election, but the fact that he carried so many states so strongly does seem to speak to larger questions of electability in November.

Obviously technical issues aren’t the only important issues facing the country, and silicon valley tech issues aren’t necessarily always the same as general science issues. Nothing was said about the war in Iraq, for example, and while they wisely include things things like math and science education in their focus issues, there’s no mention of the continuing struggle over the stain of creationism in that education.

Not perfect, but a thoughtful summary of positions on an important set of issues.

Great minds (which clearly leaves mine out of the running) continue to be annoyed by the same cultural artifacts here and there.

Yesterday at lunch one of the locals asked whether I found it awkward being away from the U.S. election coverage during all this primary action. As was the case when we were here in the UK during the 2000 election, we generally find the coverage here to be better than what we’d get back home. It tends to be more focussed on issues and have more depth (less oriented towards sound bites), so no tears shed here. And, with most news outlets on-line now, you can really choose to read/watch/listen to pretty much whatever news sources you want to, regardless of your physical location.

During the 2000 election several well-meaning people independently offered to send us U.S. newspapers so we could keep up with things. Given that it’s damn difficult to get good international news in the States, it’s not entirely surprising that people assume that it’s hard to get U.S. news when abroad. Given that the U.S. election was front page news over here, however, we declined :-).

Thanks to James Good for the cool image.

The last seven years of mismanagement, deception, and chest thumping give one at least slight pause before owning up to being from the U.S. out here in the wide world beyond Kansas. Obama’s win in Iowa, however, is something we can all be proud of regardless of the final result in November. To quote the NY Times:

Mr. Obama’s victory in this overwhelmingly white state stood as a powerful answer to the question of whether America was prepared to vote for a black person for president.

The caucus result does have a very scary side in Huckabee’s success:

Polls of Republicans entering the caucus sites found that nearly 60 percent described themselves as evangelical Christians, and by overwhelming numbers they said they intended to vote for Mr. Huckabee.

This is exactly the crowd that semi-elected Our Fearless Leader, and we’re all in trouble if they lead us down another garden path.