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‘Yes we can’

Election Day meant a lot of things to a lot of people. For Sen. Barack Obama, it meant securing his place in history as the first black man to be elected president of the United States.

For the hundreds of campaigners and thousands of supporters of Obama and Republican nominee Sen. John McCain, it meant the end of a long and hard fight.

“We have been working so hard for Obama and [Sen.] Joe Biden,” UNLV Young Democrats President Destiny Farr said. “We believe in them and believe in the change they are proposing.”

The president-elect acknowledged the thousands of campaign volunteers and employees, as well as all of his supporters, during his acceptance speech in Chicago’s Grant Park.

“This is your victory,” he said to the audience of roughly 240,000.

It was a moment many people, Democrats and Republicans alike, said they would never forget.

“To hear [Obama and Biden] will be our next president and vice president is just a huge, exciting, relieving and hopeful feeling,” Farr said.

For RaQuan Snead, vice president of the UNLV College Republicans, Tuesday ended in disappointment as Sen. McCain conceded to Obama.

“We have come to an end of a long journey,” McCain said in a speech in Phoenix.

McCain also acknowledged his campaign workers and supporters and absolved them of guilt for the Republican loss.

“Though we fell short, the failure is mine, not yours,” he said.

Back at UNLV, Snead said he was proud of the hard work he and his fellow Republicans put in campaigning.

“The people who got involved did all they could,” he said. “They were fighting an uphill battle. I felt a lot of people were voting on feelings and not issues.”

In Nevada, Obama took 55 percent of the vote while McCain received 43 percent. In the previous two presidential elections, Nevada voted Republican.

Some political analysts are pointing to the Obama campaign’s aggressive efforts throughout the Silver State and other key swing states as the reason for the victory.

Snead said he believes the youth vote played the biggest role.

He added that McCain’s vice presidential pick, Gov. Sarah Palin from Alaska, made “tremendous strides” in reaching young people. Still, the youth vote proved to be a challenge the Republican ticket could not overcome.

“I just think you have a lot of younger voters here in Nevada,” Snead said. “They see Obama and they don’t see McCain. That [was] a problem the whole campaign, unfortunately.”

According to the Associated Press, about two-thirds of voters under the age of 30 supported Obama.

UNLV Political Science Professor David Damore said the impact the Democratic Party has had on young voters could create problems for Republicans in the future.

“The Republican Party is in the process of losing an entire generation of new voters,” he said. “You go back to when I came of age in the mid 80s, early 90s — it was pretty much a 50/50 split between young voters’ allegiance to the Democrats or Republicans.”

“But for these young voters, who all they know is [President] George [W.] Bush, it’s going to be pretty tough. And then to throw a 72-year-old candidate on the ticket…it just seems to me they’re in a lot of trouble.”

Aside from McCain’s lack of support among youth, his similar voting record to Bush, campaigning style and choice of Palin as a running mate, may have been contributing factors in his loss, Damore said.

“When you’re behind that’s kind of what you’ve got to do,” he said in regards to advertisements tying Obama to Weather Underground founder William Ayers.

“[To] bring that up, given all of the other pressing issues facing the country, seemed to be a real blunder.”

Snead said he doesn’t think discussing issues such as Ayers was bad for McCain, but rather showed the American people the truth.

When Obama takes office in January, he will face the challenge of tackling the current economic crisis. Although not yet officially a recession, economists agree that tough times are ahead.

Bernard Malamud, UNLV economics professor, said there are many factors that must be taken into account when talking about America’s economic future.

Infrastructure spending, the reaction of the global economy, and consumer and business confidence are important things to keep in mind, he said.

“The economy’s downward slide has just begun,” Malamud added. “We [would] be lucky if it reversed in late 2009 or early 2010.”

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