Aileen Jeffries

Not to diminish Obama’s extraordinary political abilities, but there were so many other factors that got him elected last night. For every thing that the Obama campaign did right, the McCain campaign faltered – from mismanaging the campaign’s budget in the primary, to giving up his “maverick” nature to pander to the base, to his confounding choice of a running mate, to claiming that the fundamentals of our economy are strong when everyone was worried about losing their house or job. McCain had an obstacle to overcome (his party and ties with the highly unpopular current president) and he never offered anything to counterbalance this huge negative.

Honestly, I’m still in shock (proud, elated, thrilled, but shocked) that our country elected an African-American president. Maybe racism is a luxury – in better times, narrow-minded people could vote based on something as petty as skin color, but when the situation really gets bad, people pull the lever for the candidate they think will help them the most. If you’re stranded on a desert island, you’re not going to care about the race of the pilot who comes to save you.

On the other hand, I don’t really care how it happened, I’m just happy it did. What a profound impact the outcome of this election will have on our country and the entire world. Anna and her family stayed up all night in Athens celebrating. Shots of the crowd in Chicago brought tears to my eyes, but so did the scenes of celebration in Kenya. President Obama is affirmation of a message that hasn’t rung true for years – that in America, anything is possible and anyone can achieve their goals.

Most of the time when I tell people what I do for a living, their eyes sort of glaze over and I find myself trailing off and finishing with something vague. “Um, the Internet.” Then I talk about how I co-founded my own company, which is a far more relatable accomplishment. The icing on the cake is our actual, brick-and-mortar office which seems legitimize the whole sketchy affair in the minds of my acquaintances.

So it great when I can point to something tangible – this time literally, it can be held in my hand!  Along with a very talented team of developers, designers and strategists, I have been developing an application for the iPhone, which launched this morning. The name of this application? Obama ‘08. That’s right, I managed to combine two of my greatest interests, seeing Barack Obama get elected President this November and nourishing my inner nerd. The application is available for free on iTunes and is designed to allow supporters of the Obama campaign to look up local events, find a local HQ and read Obama’s stance on the issues. Most importantly, it organizes your contacts, prioritizing those who live in key battleground states. This feature makes me realize that I don’t really know too many people who live in battleground states – either it’s Oregon (California’s Canada!) or red states like South Carolina or Tennessee. I’m also not good at calling people up and telling them how to vote, probably a result of emotional trauma incurred during my teen-aged years spent volunteering for various First District Democratic congresspeople.

I’m very happy to have made a small contribution to something I feel very strongly about. More information about this application can be found on barackobama.com/iphone and on various blogs:

• Jason Grigsby’s User First Web
• Lyza Danger Gardner
• Raven Zachary
• Jonathan Wight’s ToxicSoftware

A man in North Carolina is my new hero for recognizing that the act of dying doesn’t automatically make one a better person. Mr Eason worked for the state for 29 years and was deeply invested in his job but chose to retire early instead of obeying a state-wide proclamation to lower the flag in honor of the passing of the racist bigot Jesse Helms.

Fittingly, he worked as the head of the state’s Standards Laboratory.

He quit rather than lower flag for Helms [News Observer]