CELEBRATION IN OHIO:Across an Ohio ballroom, men and women sobbed freely, writes Ruadhán MacCormaicin Cleveland
FOR HOURS they had known. Florida, the source of so much heartache and strife eight years ago. Ohio, predictor par excellence of America's political choices and the state they had worked so hard to make theirs again. And, just minutes earlier, the seat of the old Confederacy, Virginia, where no Democrat had managed to win in 44 years.
By now they had watched each one in turn go blue, greeting successive declarations with a cacophonous chorus of cheering and singing and unrestrained joy.
But when it finally came, the clock drawing towards 11pm and the crowd heaving with nervous anticipation, the stirring pandemonium that rose from the Hilton ballroom sounded like it originated somewhere much deeper, more elemental.
As one they leapt and yelled and threw their arms aloft. One elderly man just closed his eyes, brought his hands to his cheeks and turned his face to the ceiling, perfectly still as others forgot themselves and hugged the strangers beside them.
Across the ballroom, men and women sobbed freely. A young boy on his father's shoulder screamed into his phone: "We won. We won. We won."
The Democratic staff and volunteers of Cleveland took pride in having delivered a state that eluded Al Gore and John Kerry, and having done it decisively.
Since 1944 Ohio has picked the president in every election but one, when it chose Richard Nixon over John F Kennedy in 1960.
This time Barack Obama took the hard-fought battleground state by 51 per cent to John McCain's 47 per cent, and, according to exit polls, he won every age group under 60, more women's votes than his opponent, and 97 per cent of the black vote.
One of those belonged to Phil Davis, a 49-year-old businessman from Cleveland, who had brought his daughter to the party.
"I'm glad to be alive at this moment," he said. "It's beyond anything I ever imagined. This is up there with the signing of the Civil Rights Bill in 1964...This is my daughter. She's seven years old, and I'm just so happy that she will be able to look at any opportunity and say, why not?"
Smartly dressed in a suit, waistcoat and hat, Rev RL Peacock stood in the middle of the hall surveying the scene, "feeling better than I ever felt in my life".
"This December I'll be 75 years of age, and I've been a Democrat all my life. I never thought I would ever live to see an African American become president of the United States. I've been praying for this to happen."
"This is extremely important," said Jennifer Carter, a campaign volunteer.
"I voted on the first day of early voting, and it was very emotional. My grandparents aren't here, but they were part of the reason I was able to vote - they marched, they walked, they lived in Alabama and they were very much part of the movement."
In a reliably Democratic city such as this, Republicans are accustomed to playing the minority role, but at their event across town last night there could hardly have been a greater contrast. Where the Democrats were raucous, their counterparts were predictably dejected, and even before the earliest states had been declared party members had begun to warn of the path President Obama would pursue.
"It's time for some optimism," said Rob Frost, the local party chairman, but his audience - strikingly older than at the Democratic event - looked indifferent to his appeal.
Back at the Hilton a violinist was playing the national anthem, the crowd bellowing every word to the tune. Then it was the turn of Subodh Chandra, a delegate to the Democratic convention and a prominent fund-raiser for Obama.
He talked of his four-year-old triplet sons - third generation Americans of colour. "They will not know of a time when what happened tonight was a big deal, and that's good," he told the hushed hall. "And when I whisper in their ears as they sleep tonight that you can be anything you want to be in this country, I will be speaking the truth to them."