Election Day 2008 is now a distant memory. The historic election brought heated primaries, racial issues, record-breaking voting numbers, a Louisiana nearly united for Sen. John McCain and an African-American president-elect from Illinois, Barack Obama.And as pre-election polls favored Obama for the presidency, Louisiana’s nine electoral votes went — as expected — to McCain, who received 1,147,603 votes, compared to Obama’s 780,981 votes. But East Baton Rouge Parish bucked the Louisiana trend with Obama’s 99,431 votes topping McCain’s 95,297. Only nine of 64 parishes favored Obama. East Baton Rouge Parish voted Republican in both the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections.Louisiana, widely considered a Republican state, elected Democratic incumbent Sen. Mary Landrieu to a third term in the U.S. Senate. State voters elected Republican Bill Cassidy as congressman for Louisiana’s 6th Congressional District, removing Democratic incumbent Don Cazayoux from office. Kirby Goidel, mass communication professor, said the election results were about “what was expected.””There’s no doubt that this is an amazing moment in American history,” Goidel said as election results became apparent. “You have an African-American-elected president of the United States when they make up 12 percent of the nation … It’s an amazing moment.”Goidel called the performance of Democratic candidates throughout the nation a “major Democratic tide” and a “rejection of the Bush administration.”Scott Jordan, communications director for the Louisiana Democratic Party, said Obama’s election is evidence of America’s progression.”It’s the first African-American president,” he said. “America has gotten beyond race in a lot of ways … It’s an amazing accomplishment.”Though preliminary polls considered Louisiana a longshot for Obama, it did not stop his supporters from turning out in crowds throughout the state. The sounds of Stevie Wonder’s “Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I’m Yours),” filled the Tiger Ballroom at Red Lion Hotel while more than 150 Democratic supporters cried, cheered and danced at a party hosted on election night by the Louisiana Democratic Party.Simone Cifuentes, University law student and Louisiana Democratic watch party attendee, said it would have been “icing on the cake” if Louisiana would have been a blue state, but said she was pleased with the outcome.Independent presidential hopeful Ralph Nader rallied a crowd of about 200 people at the University in September, telling them to pay close attention to the power of large corporations, compare U.S. healthcare to the rest of the civilized world and hold the government accountable for the failure during Hurricane Katrina.Two months before the general election, Nader predicted media coverage would make a 2008 victory impossible.”If you can’t get on the debate, you can’t reach tens of millions of people, and you can’t get that many votes,” the 74 year-old independent candidate said.—-Contact Lindsey Meaux at [email protected]