CNN’s Candy Crowley and Kyra Phillips

Kyra Phillips: Candy Crowley watching I guess this peculiar piece of Americana, right Candy? We were talking earlier on the phone and you said Mr. Obama really has not been the President-Elect since November.

Candy Crowley: This makes it official. In the constitution congress has to do this, and that is count the electoral votes. Listen we all know how its going to come out, let me just take the suspense out, 365 to 173, Barack Obama wins over McCain but this is something they have to do. It looks very much, if you see that picture, it looks a lot like a state of the union address. The president pro-tem of the senate which is Dick Cheney, is supposed to preside if he is not there. We will see Senator Robert Byrd, the longest serving member of the senate. He's from West Virginia. So, it is pro-forma but it is also what makes it legal.

Kyra Phillips: And also, too, I mean, the electoral college, how many times have we had to do electoral college 101 because nobody really understood what it was, now we are looking at it, here it is in action, this is our history, this our democracy at work, so there is probably another little factor that we should probably talk about and that is that faithless elector. And, that could kind of throw a wrench into this process.

Candy Crowley: Is that the best term? I love that- faithless elector. And now we could see in fact that Dick Cheney will be there. I believe that was him going by there. So in any case, faithless electors. There haven't been much of those. But basically, that's someone that doesn't cast his electoral vote the way his state voted. In recent history the last time we saw that was in 1969 when a North Carolina Elector voted for George Wallace instead of Richard Nixon. So there was a big challenge to that and the senate and the house went into their separate places and voted on it, and in fact, that electoral vote for George Wallace was allowed to be cast. So, in order to get any more challenges from those faithless electors, you have to go back to 1877 which we all know is the Hayes/Tilden race.

Annette Gordon-Reed
Special to CNN

By now, it has become almost a cliché: "I never thought I'd live to see it happen."

That common reaction to the election of Barack Obama, an African-American, to the presidency of the United States captures much about the country's troubled racial history.

Black people have been a presence on the North American continent from the early 1600s, and the 1500s if you count the Spanish settlement at St. Augustine, Florida.

Yet, the fact that we were brought to America as slaves and had to wage a centuries-long battle for freedom - and then for civic and civil rights - has often shaped perceptions about what is and is not possible for blacks to achieve.

Keep Reading...

Kennedy is interested in Clinton's Senate seat.

Caroline Kennedy, the 51-year-old daughter of President John F. Kennedy, has a "definite interest" in filling the New York Senate seat being vacated by Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton, three sources confirm to CNN.

Two of the sources are close to Kennedy and the third is a senior Democratic operative. Kennedy's interest in the seat could mean the continuation of a family legacy in the Senate that began 56 years ago with the election of her father as the then-junior senator from Massachusetts.

Her uncle Ted has represented Massachusetts in the Senate since 1963. Her uncle Robert served as New York's junior senator from 1965 until he was assassinated in 1968.

"Remember, this (Clinton's) seat in the Senate was once held by Robert Kennedy," CNN Senior Political Analyst Bill Schneider said. "Her other uncle, Ted Kennedy, is ill right now. If (New York Gov. David) Paterson appoints Caroline Kennedy to the Senate, it means there could be a Kennedy staying in the Senate for quite a long time."

Before this year, Kennedy generally limit her forays into the public sphere to non-partisan activity, penning books on civil liberties and serving as the de facto guardian of her father's legacy.

But in January, she backed a political candidate for the first time, announcing her endorsement of Obama during the Democratic primary season with an op-ed in the New York Times that drew days of the kind of media attention she has spent her life avoiding.

"I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them," she wrote. "But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president - not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans."

"Apparently she has acquired a taste for politics," Schneider noted. "She wants to be part of this new regime in America, clearly playing a key role in the Senate if she gets that appointment."

– CNN's John King and Kate Bolduan, and Mark Preston contributed

to this report.

Jonathan Soros
Wall Street Journal

In his election-night victory speech, Barack Obama said he would be a president for all Americans, not just those who voted for him. But as a candidate he didn't campaign with equal vigor for every vote. Instead, he and John McCain devoted more than 98% of their television ad spending and campaign events to just 15 states which together make up about a third of the U.S. population.

Today, as the Electoral College votes are cast and counted state-by-state, we will be reminded why. It is the peculiar mechanics of that institution, designed for a different age, that leave us divided into red states, blue states and swing states. That needs to change.

The Electoral College was created in 1787 by a constitutional convention whose delegates were unconvinced that the election of the president could be entrusted to an unfiltered vote of the people, and were concerned about the division of power among the 13 states. It was antidemocratic by design.

Under the system, each state receives votes equal to the number of representatives it has in the House plus one for each of its senators. Less populated states are thus overrepresented. While this formula hasn't changed, it no longer makes a difference for the majority of states. Wyoming, with its three electoral votes, has no more influence over the selection of the president or on the positions taken by candidates than it would with one vote.

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Colin Powell talks with Fareed Zakaria about the Republican campaign and Gov. Sarah Palin's influence on the ticket.

Program Note: Don't miss  "Fareed Zakaria GPS" this Sunday at 1pm ET, for an exclusive interview with Fmr. Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Errol Louis
Daily News

Expectations for Barack Obama, already high, jumped even higher when his aide and longtime confidante, Valerie Jarrett, announced that the President-elect plans to create a White House office dedicated to urban affairs.

That would make good on a promise Obama made... "We need to stop seeing our cities as the problem and start seeing them as the solution. Strong cities are the building blocks of strong regions, and strong regions are essential for a strong America..."

That sounds great, but it lacks a certain audacity....
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Barack Obama and John McCain at the end of their final presidential debate.

James Carney
Time Magazine

Less than two weeks ago, on election night, John McCain pledged to do "all in my power to help [Barack Obama] lead us through the many challenges we face." On Monday, McCain will travel to Chicago to discuss ways he can fulfill that promise in a private meeting with the President-elect.

There were some who doubted the sincerity of McCain's pledge, coming so soon after the end of a campaign that featured a series of personal attacks on Obama. But it pays to remember that the self-styled maverick was never very comfortable as the standard bearer of a party that he had opposed so many times on so many issues. And the party long felt the same way.

Last Friday brought notice that the relationship between the two would soon be returning to form when South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint became the first high-profile Republican to lay the blame for McCain's loss on McCain himself. "We have to be honest, and there's a lot of blame to go around," DeMint told a GOP gathering in Myrtle Beach, S.C. "But I have to mention George Bush, and I have to mention Ted Stevens, and I'm afraid I even have to mention John McCain." DeMint then offered a list of McCain's anti-conservative apostasies, including his support for campaign finance reform, immigration reform and legislation aimed at combating global warming.

The items on DeMint's list of lament read like talking points to jump-start Monday afternoon's conversation in Chicago between McCain and Obama. According to an Obama aide, the President-elect views McCain as a potential ally on the kind of reform issues for which the two men share broad agreement. "There are areas of general agreement and beliefs — on immigration, earmark reform, energy, climate change, government reform, spending reform," says the aide. "Where there's agreement on both sides, they want to figure out ways they can work together."

Read more...

Jennifer Donahue
NHIOP Political Director & Harvard IOP Fellow

The main Republican talking point coming out of the shock and awe election last week is that we are a "center-right country." Tell me then, how did Barack Obama get elected by an overwhelming electoral sweep and a decisive popular vote differential? How did the Democrats keep and grow control in Congress?

David Brooks outlined on Tuesday the split between the "reformists" and the "traditionalists" in the Republican party. The center-right tension exists within, not outside, the Republican party. With 51% of people polled saying they want to see a more activist government, the highest number since 1992, surely we are at least a center-center country right now.

A 2007 PEW center poll found that from 1994 till now, 12 percent more Americans feel the "government should care for those who can't care for themselves... even if it means greater debt."

As a political analyst, I like evidence. I like to describe what is, not what is "brandable". The idea that we are a "center-right" country is wishful spin, considering that we voted differently.

David Gergen
AC360° Contributor
CNN Senior Political Analyst

I went back to look at the last speech that Martin Luther King gave in 1968, the day before he was assassinated.

King said, “I just want to do God's will. He's allowed me to go up to the mountain and I’ve looked over and I’ve seen the promise land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight we as a people will get to the promise land.”

It seems to me that for an awful lot of people in this country, especially for African Americans, Barack Obama has said that he's part of the Joshua Generation. Martin Luther King was our Moses. We haven't ended our prejudice, but there's something about this evening and election that has made an awful lot of people feel this is the Joshua Generation, we can do something we thought we could never reach 30, 40, 50 years ago.

Editor's Note: You can read more Lisa Bloom blogs on “In Session”

Lisa Bloom
AC360° Contributor
In Session Anchor

YES WE DID!, I wrote in giant letters on my Facebook page on election night, tears in my eyes as I watched Barack Obama’s inspiring acceptance speech. Every moment of it was so moving. And when I heard my African-American friends talk about the symbolism of this day, that they can look into their children’s eyes and honestly say that we are all now truly equal – well, as a lifelong civil rights activist, I thought, it has happened. We shall overcome, not someday, but today.

Martin Luther King, Jr. said the night before he was assassinated, “And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the promised land.” Hallelujah, I thought, we have arrived. Free at last, free at last.

Then I remembered my gay friends, who faced ugly ballot measures in four states. The California Supreme Court just last May issued a landmark ruling that gay people were entitled to equal marriage rights. My mother, Gloria Allred, was one of the lead attorneys in that case. I remembered Del Martin and Phyllis Lyons, together for 55 years, who were the first couple married after that decision, one in a wheelchair, the other walking slowly to the altar. “At our age,” they said, “we don’t have the luxury of time.” I remembered that on the day of that decision, citizens of San Francisco’s Castro District took down their rainbow flags and flew American flags. “For the first time in my life,” they told me, “I feel like a full citizen. I can tell my children that in the eyes of the law I am just as worthy as anyone else.” I remembered riding in Santa Monica’s gay pride parade alongside my mother in June, getting mobbed by thousands of ordinary people who were grateful that she had won for them the extraordinary privilege of simple respect.

Symbolism matters to disenfranchised people in a way that is hard to explain to those of us who always knew we could be anything we want to be in America. Forget president. Gay people can’t even be spouses, though Britney Spears could have her umpteenth marriage tomorrow just by stumbling into a quickie Vegas chapel. Scott Peterson has the legal right to marry on death row after murdering his wife and unborn child. No matter how undeserved, straight people never lose the right to marry; no matter how worthy, gay people cannot earn it. Except in Massachusetts and Connecticut which, bless them, seem to be sticking to their pro-gay marriage court rulings.

On Nov. 4, the legality of gay marriage was on the ballots in Florida, California and Arizona. Voters in Florida and Arizona passed similar measures specifying that only marriage between one man and one woman will be recognized in those states. It looks like California voters have amended the state constitution to, for the first time, take away constitutional rights granted by the courts. Arkansas voters banned gay people from becoming adoptive or foster parents. For gay people, it’s a return to the back of the bus. Especially for millions of gay Californians, this lurch backwards is a kick in the gut, because they had enjoyed six months of marriage equality. They had thought their time had come.

And so my celebration of Obama’s sweeping electoral victory is tempered by the reality that not all of us are considered equal in this country, not here, not yet. How sad that at this great moment of inclusiveness in American history, gay people are left behind. To my gay brothers and sisters, friends, neighbors and coworkers, I say, you are not forgotten. Keep fighting. Decent people stand with you. To gay teens I say, hold your heads high. To elderly gay folks I say, my heart breaks that you must continue to wait for the rights, the respect and common decency that should be yours now.

Obama’s victory is transcendent, but can we still do more to make include every American in the protection of our laws? Yes, we can.

Editor's note: See more of Lisa's posts at the In Session blog

President-elect Barack Obama looks out into the crowd after his acceptance speech at Grant Park in Chicago

John P. Avlon
AC360° Contributor

First things first: Today is a great day for America. We have a new President of the United States. Behind that remarkable fact are the statistical trends and milestones that made Barack Obama's election possible. So take a second to study the numbers so you can sound smarter in election-related conversation, or just get some perspective to further appreciate this moment.

By winning 52 percent of the popular vote, Barack Obama joined the ranks of FDR and LBJ in being the only Democratic presidents to get more than 51 percent of the popular vote in the past 100 years. Woodrow Wilson, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton never cleared that hurdle. That's an achievement in itself.

In many ways, last night was a step towards realignment. A few days ago I posted an analysis of six swing counties that could determine the election's outcome. Barack Obama carried each and every one by a margin close to 10 points. Obama won the swing voters in the swing counties in the swing states that he needed to win this election. 

Amid record turnout, Obama was able to build a broad coalition reminiscent of Bobby Kennedy's mythic 1968 campaign. He appealed especially to students, voters under 40, African-Americans and Latinos. He split middle class voters with McCain but won moderates by 60 percent and independents by a 5 point margin. And while his victory is not a liberal ideological mandate, it is a mandate for a change away from the polarized politics of our recent past. 

American's hope and faith have been invested not just in the figure of Barack Obama but in his essential message of transcending old divides in our politics between left and right, black and white, red states and blue states. 

The fact that Obama, as the first African-American nominee, was able to win the swing states and put red states in play including those in the South, such as Virginia and (it looks like) North Carolina demonstrates the historic success of his election outreach. The Democrat's 50-state strategy has broadened and changed the electoral map. Now those shifts must be reinforced.

It's said that you campaign in poetry but govern in prose.  Now begins the time for President-elect Obama to begin making cabinet appointments and announcing policy priorities that reinforce the inclusive and essentially centrist nature of his realigning victory.

Soledad O’Brien
CNN Anchor and Special Correspondent

Think the campaigning was challenging? The hard work begins today.

Here's what people have to remember. Black people didn’t elect Barak Obama. Yes, African Americans turned out in overwhelming numbers - 96 percent of African Americans nationwide voted for Obama.

But it was the Hispanic vote, too, that put him over the top. People debated whether Latinos would vote for an African American - they would and they did. 67 percent of Latinos who voted, voted for Obama.

Young voters turned out for Obama - 66 percent of voters under the age of 30 - voted for Obama.

New voters - who made up 11 percent of the electorate in this highly anticipated election year - 68 percent voted for Barak Obama.

And white voters... 43 percent of them, that's tens of millions of white voters, voted for Obama.

The promise of America is a promise for everyone–not just for "Joe the plumber," but all Americans who represent the diverse and changing face of our nation.

Rachel Campos-Duffy
Blogger, TV host, mother

So the question is where do we Republicans go from here? At this point it’s cliché to say that we're being punished for George Bush’s sins and for economic crises that happened on our watch, and unfortunately, in the final months of a close election.

There’s no point in reminding the voters about Chris Dodd and Barney Frank who pushed mortgages for the poor but no regulations to prevent fraud, and the Democratic Congress, which took control in 2006 but did little while the mortgage and credit derivatives markets spun out of control.

The voters wanted change, even if they didn’t exactly know what Obama’s nebulous definition of change looked like. This was not the year for old white guys (or women – hello, Hillary), who had spent a lot of time in Washington.

Now, the Democrats celebrate. On the Republican side, a quieter transition is also occurring. The future of the Republican Party will be passed to a new generation of young, smart, conservative, and principled leaders like Wisconsin’s Rep. Paul Ryan who will help the Party shed its tired image and restore its core principles.

This election has also secured Governor Palin’s role in the Party’s future. If Obama taught us anything, it’s that star power matters, and right now, she’s all we got. For conservative moms like me, she is a bright light, but she is not enough.

The Party will also need to find and nurture leaders who can inspire younger voters and minorities, especially Hispanics. At this moment, we don’t know who they will be. That’s ok. They will emerge. President-elect Barack Obama was an Illinois state senator less than two years before he announced his run for president!.

Editor's note: Rachel Campos-Duffy blogs on www.Parentdish.com. She has periodically hosted several television shows. And she is mother of fiver children.

John P. Avlon
AC360° Contributor

It means a new beginning for America, the restoration of the American Dream, the conquering of old divides between left and right and black and white.

Barack Obama supporters celebrate at Hyde Park Hair Salon where President-elect Barack Obama gets his hair cut on the south side of Chicago

Joe Klein
TIME.com

Eleven months ago, I attended a John Edwards speech in the little town of Algona, Iowa. It was a Sunday afternoon, and Edwards had drawn a large crowd of mostly uncommitted voters to a local factory that made wind-turbine components. Two things soon became apparent as I interviewed a dozen or so Algonans before the speech. The first was that there were a fair number of Republicans present, a phenomenon I was beginning to notice all over Iowa. They were not yet committed to voting Democratic, but they mentioned their disappointment in George W. Bush, their frustration with the war in Iraq and their dismay with the right-wing religious drift of the state Republican Party. The last time I'd seen so many crossovers was in 1980, when Democrats — angry at Jimmy Carter and their party's leftward drift — made their presence felt at Republican meetings, heralding the onset of the Reagan era.

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David Remnick
The New Yorker

Early this morning, the Obama family had voted at the Beulah Shoesmith Elementary School, in Hyde Park. Long after they had gone, the lawn out in front of the school was filled with reporters, mostly Europeans, filming voters. While I was doing my duty, talking to an eight-year-old kid dressed as George Washington, my colleague Peter Slevin of the Washington Post was across the street knocking on the door of someone else who had voted at the Shoesmith School this morning: William Ayers.

Ayers has avoided reporters since he became an election talking-point, scratch-pole, and general sensation. But now he answered the door of his three-story rowhouse, and I came to join the discussion. Ayers is sixty-four and has earrings in both ears. He wore jeans and Riley t-shirt—Riley the kid from “Doonesbury.” The day was fall-bright and 50th Street was filled with fallen gold leaves. Ayers waved to neighbors and kids as they went by on the sidewalk. He was, for the first time in a long time, in an expansive mood, making clear that in all the months his name has been at the forefront of the campaign, he and his wife, Bernardine Dohrn—ex-leaders of the Weather Underground and longtime educators and activists in the community—have been watching a lot of cable television, not least Fox.

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Ted Rowlands
CNN Correspondent

On the Vegas strip dozens of people, who'd had no intention of watching election results, stood on Las Vegas Boulevard, glued to the Planet Hollywood Jumbo screen showing CNN.

It was a watch party nobody intended to attend, and that people were reluctant to leave.

When the race was called, there were some cheers. And when Barack Obama finished his speech I saw a few glassy eyes and heard some applause.

But mostly people just stood and stared, taking in a moment of history they hadn't planned to experience, but will likely never forget.

Roland S. Martin
AC360° Contributor
CNN Political Analyst

Obama will be sworn in January 20th, 2009. It will mark the 100th anniversary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Obama got his start in politics in Springfield, Illinois. It was a race riot in Springfield, Illinois that led to the creation of NAACP.

For African Americans, when their children say, 'I want to be a doctor,' 'I want to be a lawyer,' 'I want to be a politician,' 'I want to be an astronaut,' they can always point to an African American who achieved it. Whenever a kid says,' I want to be president,' I literally saw black parents say, son, or daughter, you might think of being something else. I have nine nieces and four nephews. When I talk to them I can actually say, 'Yes, you can,' and mean it.

Paul Begala
Democratic strategist
CNN political contributor

I’m thinking of Barbara Jordan, one of the great leaders of civil rights.

Thirty-four years ago, as a congresswoman, she said that when the constitution was written it began “we the people” but left her out. She thought maybe it was by accident.

In truth, that document enslaved her and insulted her counting her as three-fifths of a human being. But she concluded my faith in the constitution is whole, total and complete.
Tonight reminds me of what scripture says: faith this is substance of things hoped for. This has been hoped by a lot of people for a long time. People have kept faith with the American Dream and Constitution even when they were left out of it. This is a wonderful and powerful night for everybody who believes in the Constitution and the American Dream.

This is a cynical sage and its cynical profession we're in, but you cannot look at these people and upon the history that is being made tonight and be a cynic.

Chris Welch
CNN Producer

As you can imagine, Michigan Avenue, lots of horns blaring, various dancing in street, people hanging out of moon roofs - ecstatic.

Not out of control however, it comes and goes in waves. No mass chaos as of now.

One older African American: thank you, Jesus, thank you Jesus, thank you Jesus.

Other people heard: I never thought I'd see this. Never thought we'd see the day.