Obama, Biden win historical US election; both Obama and McCain call for unity to face the myriad challenges ahead

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"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," President-elect Barack Obama said after his victory. The first black president-elect cast his election as a defining moment in the country's 232-year history and a rebuke to cynicism, fear and doubt. "Even as we celebrate tonight, we know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime — two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century," he said. "There is new energy to harness and new jobs to be created; new schools to build and threats to meet and, for us to lead, alliances to repair."

Obama’s victory speech was delivered before a multiracial crowd that city officials estimated at 240,000 people. He said he had received an "extraordinarily gracious" call from his Republican rival John McCain, who he said had "fought long and hard" for this campaign and for his country. "We are better off for the service rendered by this brave and selfless leader," he said of the former Vietnam prisoner of war, "and I look forward to working with them to renew this nation's promise in the month's ahead."

McCain addressed his supporters in an emotional speech at a Phoenix hotel after telephoning Obama to concede the election. "We have come to the end of a long journey. The American people have spoken, and they have spoken clearly," McCain said. "Senator Obama has achieved a great thing for himself and for his country. I applaud him for it."

The 72-year-old Arizona senator urged all Americans - including his supporters - to rally behind Obama, saying he planned to help the new president-elect tackle the myriad issues the country faced. "It's natural, tonight, to feel some disappointment. But tomorrow, we must move beyond it and work together to get our country moving again," McCain told his supporters, shushing them occasionally with "please, please" when they booed his mentions of Obama.

McCain and Obama clashed over the Iraq war, taxes, trade, and energy policy during a heated, five-month general election, but the Arizona senator pledged his support as the next president navigates a major financial crisis and two wars abroad. "Senator Obama and I have had and argued our differences, and he has prevailed," McCain said, adding many of those differences remained. "These are difficult times for our country, and I pledge to him tonight to do all in my power to help him lead us through the many challenges we face."

After a campaign that grew negative at times, most recently with Republican attacks on Obama's ties to a 1960s radical, McCain emphasized common ground between the two men. "Whatever our differences, we are fellow Americans and please believe me when I say no association has meant more to me than that." McCain expressed sympathy the recent death of Obama's grandmother, saying he was sorry she had not lived to see her grandson's victory. He also acknowledged the historic nature of Obama's win.

Obama, an Illinois senator born 47 years ago of a white American mother and a black African father, sprinkled his address with references to the civil rights struggle. He quoted another president from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, and although he didn't mention Martin Luther King Jr.'s name, he echoed King's statement that "we shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."

He made a final Election Day campaign stop in Indiana, one of several longtime Republican strongholds in the presidential race that he tried to win. It was a symbolic ending of a campaign for a candidate who first made his name with an address to the Democratic National Convention four years ago in which he decried efforts to "slice and dice our country into red states and blue states." He repeated that sentiment in his victory speech. "We have never been a collection of red states and blue states. We are, and always will be, the United States of America," he said.

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Photos courtesy of Joe Raedle/Getty Images, Damon Winter/The New York Times, myjoyonline.com, Time, and Michael Czerwonka / Getty

Original Source: The Press Association, Reuters and AP

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