2008 Post-Election
Special
Interview
Notes from Evan Smith
"Now comes the hard part — but first, let’s give credit where it’s due.
Barack Obama’s victory this week was literally one for the books: a blowout in the popular vote, which he won by 6 percent and seven million-plus votes, and an electoral vote landslide that fell just shy of Bill Clinton’s big wins in 1992 and 1996. Obama amassed 362 electoral votes to John McCain’s 173, along the way turning a long list of recently red states blue. It was, at times, an ugly race, a negative race, a mean-spirited and intensely personal race. But it was also magnificently, astoundingly historic — a triumph of hope over fear. How did we get here? And where do we go from here? The answers to those admittedly broad questions are on everyone’s minds today, and they’re the jumping-off point for a conversation with my favorite observers of the political scene: Mark McKinnon, a top adviser to and strategist for the Bush/Cheney campaigns of 2000 and 2004 and to John McCain’s primary campaign in 2008; Matthew Dowd, likewise a top strategist for the Bush/Cheney campaigns in 00 and 04 and now an ABC News analyst; and Douglas Brinkley, the award-winning historian and biographer, professor of history at Rice University, and CBS news analyst". - Evan Smith, Texas Monthly Talks, Broadcast 11.06.08