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An unprecedented event and waves of emotion

— PHOTOS: AP, AFP

It’s celebration time: A crowd gathered in Times Square, New York, reacts to Barack Obama’s acceptance speech broadcast on television on Tuesday night.

You had to watch — and if you couldn’t watch, you had to hear.

In this election for the ages, Albert Watson, 56, was the doorman stuck with the night shift on Tuesday evening at an apartment building on East 96th Street in Manhattan — no television, no radio, no smartphone or smart anything, a man starved of information on this night of all nights.

He had to know.

Joanna Gunderson, 76, from the 12th floor, recognised this, and she padded down and told him about Indiana. His friend from church, Faith Murray, who was home glued to the television in the Bronx, called him frequently with feeds. Here she was with news of 16 States deposited in the Obama column, his man on the way.

As the desired verdict was reached, Mr. Watson knew he was going to “be drinking all kinds of champagne tomorrow.” He savoured the moment. He said, “Today is a date to be glad and rejoice.”

At last, when the stampede of polls and blogged opinions and phone-bank calls no longer mattered and it was a done deal, supporters of Senator Barack Obama arrayed everywhere from a Las Vegas casino to an Iowa supermarket to a call centre in Gurgaon, India, exulted with jubilation and abundant relief.

For Republican Senator John McCain’s backers, it was no longer possible to bank on comebacks and upsets. Spin finally stood still. The underdog would remain just that.

Television personality Oprah Winfrey and Rev. Jesse Jackson celebrate in Chicago after projections showed Mr. Obama would be the next President.

In an energised election heavily draped in symbolism, response was particularly emotive at settings already permanently encased in history’s glow. At the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, the home church of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a “Watch Night” was accompanied by a candlelight vigil across the street at the crypt where King is buried.

“It’s just like a new world,” said Leroy Johnson, 80, a former State Senator who was a year behind King at Morehouse College. “It’s a new life.”

The quadrennial institution of election-watching reached something of a frenzied pinnacle. Just about everyone felt compelled to see the concluding moments of this exhausting and exhaustive narrative unfurl — State by State, talking head by talking head.

Throngs of parties and events bubbled throughout the country, almost colliding into one another. Updates turned up everywhere.

At the Izod Center at the New Jersey Meadowlands, where the New Jersey Nets were hosting the Phoenix Suns, the most raucous applause came not from dunks but from half-hourly election dispatches beamed on the Jumbotron. When Pennsylvania fell to Mr. Obama, the crowd erupted, clapping their thunder sticks together. During timeouts, even the players looked.

Parties were de rigueur at college campuses, where any election (or actually, anything) qualifies as adequate reason to party.

At the Sykes Student Union at West Chester University in West Chester, Pa., the election event was choreographed to be lively. Hence offerings like pin the tail on the donkey/elephant. Hence have a picture taken with McCain and Obama (18 Obama, 2 McCain). Students were urged to dress as their candidate for the chance at “awesome prizes.”

Once victory was projected, students mounted tables, hugged and chanted, “Obama, Obama.”

“This broke the back of racial politics,” said a tearful Marc Fauntleroy, 21.

Matt Whittall, 18, an accounting major and McCain supporter, felt that too many potential McCain voters on campus had been overwhelmed by Democratic “propaganda.”

As pursuit of the highest office tends to do, the scalding campaign had singed certain relationships. At the East Ridge Retirement Village in Cutler Bay, Fla., dinner is communal, starting at — yes — 4.15 p.m., hard on the heels of Happy Hour. In recent weeks, some Obama and McCain supporters had insulated themselves at separate tables, politics overwhelming shared interests in golf, bridge and the best foot ointments.

It was that way again on Tuesday, residents migrating to candidate-pure tables as drinks and later beef stew and maple-glazed turkey were served. At her table, Patricia Bayer, 85, announced that she had voted for Mr. McCain, prompting Frances McClure, 74, who had voted for Mr. Obama, to exclaim, “What? I’m out of here.”

And she was.

Stomachs satisfied, everyone repaired to their units to watch. The McCain voters, like Barbara Sims, 79, and her husband Robert Sims Sr., 86, knew it could be a short and sour evening. This would not be another 2000, when the sun came out, breakfast was served and the election firmly entered the Twilight Zone.

The Simses could take only so much. When Ohio was called, Sims said, “Forget it.” He went to walk the dog.

David Rankin, 52, is a long-haul truck driver, and he had to work — getting faucet parts from Ohio to North Carolina. At the TravelAmerica truck stop off Interstate 71 in Lodi, Ohio, he had a small television in his truck, tuned in. He was a McCain man, always voted Republican. “McCain has done everything for this country except die,” he said. But he was resigned to the night’s outcome, time to get the faucets moving.

People buy food when they want food. At the 24-hour Hy-Vee supermarket in Iowa City that meant even Tuesday night, prime time. Still, election for the ages, all that, the television was on in the break room and in a dining area, and the States fell as canned vegetables were chosen and cash registers chimed.

So there were Danny DeVooght, 19, in customer service, and Mamuch Wal, 20, a floral clerk — both Obama voters — following with mounting excitement.

When the election was called, Wal said, “I feel great. Hopefully the world will like us a lot more.”

Noemi Ford, 32, shopping in Aisle 13, exclaimed, “I can’t believe it!”

Interest was elevated throughout the world, election-watching events patched together even among those who could have no say.

At Kavarna Mlynska, a smoky basement bar in central Prague, Martin Kotas, 34, closed the bar to host a McCain party for his fellow Czech conservatives. They felt the election was more important than their own national vote. As the outcome turned the way he feared it might, Mr. Kotas sipped beer and grew despondent. “I am very sad,” he said. “The values that are important to me have been lost.”

Election compulsion could be discovered amid the lonely pursuits of the call-centre workers at iYogi, a software technical support company in Gurgaon, on the outskirts of Delhi. Here victory accompanied India’s morning. When not fielding service calls, the phone technicians observed the electoral numbers change on the Internet. Quite a few of the staff members were in the Obama camp.

“The way he speaks is very moderate and cool,” said Sagar Bajaj, 23. “He will bring peace to the world.”

For the first time on an election night, the First Corinthian Baptist Church in Harlem arranged two giant televisions up front and invited its congregation to bear witness together. — New York Times News Service

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