Barack Obama

Apparently looking for something old to go with something new (Barack Obama) and something blue (a more Democratic Congress), the American people bought newspapers in huge numbers Wednesday, a day after the historic election of the nation's first black president. From the nation's largest daily, USA Today, to its more modest broadsheets, newspapers expanded press runs to accommodate enormous sales. Some papers even sold special gift editions and framed front pages.

Tommy Vietor was the first youthful convert to pack his bags, leave home and sign on to the Barack Obama campaign, joining the Chicago operation before his boss, then running for the Senate, had even given the convention speech by which the rest of Democratic America would discover him. He rose from driver of a press van across rural Illinois to fixture of the White House situation room. Now, the 32-year-old is contemplating something new -- a future not working for Obama. Amid the high-level departures and appointments of Obama's second term, a quieter changing of the guard is taking place farther down the food chain.

Protestant Latinos, a growing group of voters who were key supporters of President Bush in 2004, have shifted their backing to Democratic Sen. Barack Obama, driven in large part by anger toward Republican immigration policies, according to a poll released Thursday. Latinos overall represent about 6% of U.S. voters. Protestant Latinos -- about a third of all Latinos -- heavily supported Bush's reelection.

As adoring crowds turn out nationwide for the book tour of Sen. Barack Obama, the Illinois Democrat has not only reaffirmed his standing as a potential presidential contender but also as the rare politician whose appeal carries over into print. "There's a difference between a politician and a folk hero, or rock star," says presidential historian Douglas Brinkley. "In large part because of his books, Obama has become a rock star."

Some places are defined by a single event. Roswell, N.M., will always be known for space aliens, Dallas for assassination. And this little town in the Piney Woods of eastern Mississippi will forever be the site of one of the most brutal crimes of the civil rights era.

Barack Obama stares silently at a wall of fading black-and-white photographs in the muggy second-floor offices of the Harvard Law Review. He lingers over one row of solemn faces, his predecessors of 40 years ago. All are men. All are dressed in dark-colored suits and ties. All are white. It is a sobering moment for Obama, 28, who in February became the first black to be elected president in the 102-year history of the prestigious student-run law journal.

The phones weren't working right. The fax machine wasn't hooked up. And the walls were bare, except for a giant map of Illinois propped on its end, waiting to be hung. But even before the makeshift office was up and running in the basement of a Senate building, even before he raised his hand Tuesday to take the oath of office as the junior senator from Illinois, Barack Obama was already a political rock star and a celebrated new face in Congress. "Congratulations, man!"

Earlier this year, Starlet Travis voted Republican in the U.S. Senate race here. But come November, she's casting her vote for a Democratic state senator, though she disagrees with the politician's stance on some social issues. After Travis watched Barack Obama speak at a fundraiser a few days ago, she rushed to meet him. "You're the only person in this race that we trust," she told Obama as she gave him a photograph to sign. "You aren't talking like a crazy man."

After the fireworks stopped, the tears of joy or despair dried and the jubilant crowds straggled home, the magnitude of what happened on election day 2008 began to set in. Barack Obama was president-elect, the first black man in the country's history to claim the Oval Office. The response was as complex and varied as America itself: elation, shock, doubt, wonder and some hard feelings. Older folks put their trust in children they decided knew better.

He managed to burnish a reformer's reputation while swimming in the muddy waters of special-interest- infested state politics. He worked on a nice-guy image while practicing the hardball and brawling tactics of Chicago-style politics. Now, promoting himself as a fresh face on the national political stage, proclaiming his distance from lobbyists and the Washington culture of special interests, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) has to contend with his own history.