Election-night symbolism
Last Tuesday night, I went down to Chicago's Grant Park to witness
Barack Obama's election and victory speech. At the event, I was struck
by the fact that the crowd was at its loudest and most excited not when
Obama and his family took the stage but earlier, when CNN projected him
as the winner. There was no drama left when the networks finally called
it: they waited till the West-coast polls closed, by which time the
outcome had been certain for some time. Yet seeing what we already knew