“Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.” It works for the mobsters of The Godfather, but President Obama and the White House have been working so hard to court our enemies that they have alienated core Democratic constituencies. No group has felt this more than the LGBT community. When Obama addresses the Human Rights Campaign’s (HRC, the largest gay-rights organization) annual gala this Saturday, he will have the chance to either renew his relations with this loyal Democratic constituency or incite further agitation and disenchantment.

As a candidate in the primaries, Obama positioned himself to the left of frontrunner Hillary Clinton on gay rights. He promised speedy repeals of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT, the law that bans gays from serving openly in the military) and the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA, which bans same-sex marriage on a federal level). He made a number of other commitments, promising to serve as a “fierce advocate” for the LGBT community and pledging to put the full weight of the White House behind eight legislative goals. In return, the LGBT community threw much of its support behind Obama, both in fundraising and in actual campaigning. The community finally saw someone that would work for them in the White House. (more…)

Conservatives (and some liberals) have often charged that a segment of Barack Obama’s fanbase has turned into a cult of sorts. It’s a fair charge to a certain degree. It’s also not unique to political figures—not least of which, Ronald Reagan. (Seriously, ask a conservative if they can think of a negative thing about Reagan. His liberal son, Ron, doesn’t count.)

But if liberals are guilty of creating an Obama cult, then some conservatives have responded with an Obama paranoia—a burning hatred and distrust of Obama so intense as to totally defy reason. One way this manifests itself is to repeatedly and brainlessly denounce Obama as “socialist,” even as his economic policies have been stridently anti-socialist. For example, most liberal opinion leaders thought early on that Obama’s approach to the banking issue had to include temporary nationalization of the affected banks. Obama’s proposal not only shied away from that idea (Treasury Secretary Geithner was said to be deeply wary of it), but it seemed to shift the public debate away from public ownership.

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Excuse the incoherence, please — I didn’t start crying until just now. OK, I’ve stopped. We have just elected a black man to be President of the United States. And we did not elect him because of the color of his skin, we elected him because of the content of his character. Imagine what Dr. King would say today.

This night was not the happiest of my life — I don’t even feel anything right now. But it was by far the most amazing. Without a doubt, the most fascinating. The raw emotion of this night was a sight to behold, a frustration of eight years vented over the course of several hours.

The first big euphoric rise came at around 9:00 I’m guessing, when CNN called Pennsylvania. The next biggie was Ohio around a half hour later, when I nearly lost my voice for a few minutes. At this point, the race was pretty much over. Would there be any emotion left when 270 became 270, I wondered.

At 10:58, the 500 or so of us in the Continental Ballroom rose up and roared in unison as CNN called Virginia. This was especially meaningful, I’m sure, to all of you College Democrats who worked your asses off in Virginia this fall for Barack. And then came the realization that in less than two minutes, California, Washington, and Oregon would have their polls close and likely be called for Obama. The cheers steadily rose as 11:00 approached. Five seconds before CNN even displayed the graphic that Obama was our new president, people began celebrating what they knew was coming. Jumping and screaming at a volume that would normally have really irritated me didn’t faze me at all. Hugging and crying and disbelief.

And that was only the first part of the night. What does a GW student do after a presidential election? Go to the White House, of course! The five-block walk from the Marvin Center to the executive mansion was non-stop honking and yelping, and it only intensified as we got closer to the intersection of 16th and Penn. A crowd of thousands of students was already on hand, and many more were coming down Pennsylvania to join them. Some were sober, some not. A couple were wearing Obama Halloween masks. A few lit up victory cigars. Chants of “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” and “Yes we did! Yes we did!” rang out. A conga line ripped past me as they all chanted “O-ba-ma! O-ba-ma!” An off-key rendition of God Bless America started, and I joined — equally off-key, to be sure.

As I started to make my way through the crowds to head back, I bumped into probably the only person there over 25 — this man was well past 25 — and almost instantly recognized him as Leon Wieseltier, the literary editor of my lifeblood, The New Republic. His presence surprised me given, how reluctant his support for Senator Obama was. (In May, I overheard him say that he feared Obama would be “another Jimmy Carter.”) But I guess even curmudgeons are not immune to revelry.

A small part of me feels sorry for John McCain. He once was a noble and independent man, and maybe now he can be again. I feel like we saw the old McCain in his very gracious concession speech tonight. I see I’m not the only one to think so. We can use his help in the Senate for the hard part of this ordeal — governing!

I couldn’t help but take issue with something John McCain said when he reacted to GW alum Gen. Colin Powell’s full-out endorsement of Barack Obama. On Fox News this morning, McCain stated that “[t]his [endorsement] doesn’t come as a surprise.” Really? Why is that? Powell, after all, gave McCain the maximum $2,300 last year. There are really only four explanations I can think of that would explain why Mac thinks this is such a natural turn of events.

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