Joy and Celebration Over Obama Victory

ABC News On Campus reporter Dominick Tao blogs: There were moments when Bequita Gaines couldn’t speak. She saw the words on the screen, she heard the crowd roar behind her, but the 21-year-old University of Florida senior said she couldn’t believe
what she was watching. Surrounded by hundreds of cheering students under the vaulted ceiling of UF’s Grand Ballroom on campus, the Barack Obama supporter had just seen her months of hoping and praying reach a
resounding end. She began to cry. The election had just been called, the marquee on the giant projector towering above her was displaying history. President-Elect: Barack Obama. "Words can’t even express how I feel right now," Gaines said. "It’s simply so amazing to be alive." Shortly after that moment, students across America erupted in emotional celebrations on campuses and in barrooms, in living rooms and countless election-watch parties. For many, this was the first political event in their lives for which they’ve felt any passion. And for others, this election day was the first where they’ve even been old enough to vote. At the University of North Carolina and other universities around the country, students rushed the streets after the election was called by major newspapers and TV networks. Horns honked. Crowds
chanted. Whether their state was red or blue, students described the election in words that transcend state lines and party rhetoric:  Monumental. Historic. Special. From Gainesville, Fla. to Syracuse, N.Y., students have compared their excitement to being a kid again on Christmas Eve. Only there are no wrapped presents on Nov. 4, just the satisfaction of
knowing that they put the candidate most favored by young people, Obama, into the White House. From watering holes around the University of North Carolina campus to the University of Texas, screams of excited students echoed into the night, some comparing their experiences more to a
post-football game revelry than an election return. The lead-up to the celebration was a cross-section of revelry and civic duty. "Students are starting for the first time in their lives to care seriously about an election," said David Lopez, a University of Florida political science major, who watched the election results from the corner of Brophy’s Irish Pub in downtown Gainesville with fellow members of his political science honor society. And even as the DJ sets up his equipment, and the Guinness continued flowing behind the bar, Lopez and his classmates remained glued to the big screen TV.
"Today is not an excuse to party, but to participate," he said. Students across America settled in to couches and bar stools, theater seats and ballroom floors. Their eyes were fixed to massive projector screens and laptop monitors. They were tuned in
to dozens of networks and Web sites, but they were all watching the same thing: The 2008 presidential election, the election where many of them feel they’ve made a difference. "This is a monumental moment that I’m glad I’m alive for," said University of Texas senior Shafayet Faraizi as he watched election results with the University Democrats. "In a hundred years, people
will remember this." For some of these college students, watching history unfold is more important than even college — if only for the night. After dark at Top of The Hill, a popular restaurant near the UNC campus, ear-piercing sounds of joy shot from a corner of the outdoor patio. A table of young women were ecstatic. Obama had
just taken Ohio. Shortly after, UNC freshman Katie Musgrove hugged friends and said, "I’m gonna fail my French test tomorrow, but I don’t care!  I’m so exhilarated!" While the majority of college students had reason to celebrate, students backing John McCain were largely absent from even the large non-partisan celebrations. At the UNC Young Republicans election watch party, held in a classroom on campus, there was no beer, and fewer than 30 students filled just a few rows in the large lecture hall. As the viewers saw on the projector screen that North Carolina may help elect Obama for president and Democrats for Governor and a Senate seat, a student said, "What happened to our state?" North Carolina hasn’t elected a Democrat to the office of president since Jimmy Carter in 1977. Back at the Top O’, voices from rooftops cheer when a state turns blue on the network election maps. When a state turns red, the din evokes the stadium rumble of a bad call against the home team
during homecoming. Even UNC Senior William Humphries, a Republican taking in the election among hundreds of Democrats at the restaurant, said being with friends was more important than party affiliation. "There
is no other place to be in Chapel Hill," he said. Then, the election was called. Back at the University of Florida in the Reitz Student Union Grand Ballroom, hundreds of students reacted to history in a way more heartfelt than any celebration the school has seen in recent
semesters, even after three national championships in as many years. Kristian Fong, a UF sophomore, saw the words on the screen:
President-Elect Barack Obama. She shot up from her chair. Her voice already gone from hours of cheering, the 19-year-old first-time voter sqeaked out nonsensical, joyous nothings toward the cavernous ballroom ceiling. Her hands waved in the air, she jumped, she danced. Tears came to her eyes, and all around her, a chest-rattling din of
cheers and wild flailing of celebrating bodies welcomed the next president of the United States. Walter Storholt, Carly Swain, Wilson Andrews, Andrew Egan and Sabina Kuriakose contributed to this blog.