One of the most interesting aspects of President-Elect Barack Obama’s victory over John McCain and becoming the nation’s first African American elected President is the coalition of voters he used to obtain victory. Obama won with a broad coalition of African American, Latino, young white voters, and women. An electoral coalition that will only grow with time. During the primaries and the general election there were calls and suggestions that America was not ready for a black President. America answered with a resounding yes.

His win was just as geographically diverse winning the southern states of Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida; the southwestern states of Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada. Obama owned the Midwest winning Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio and almost winning Missouri. The northeast and west coast remained blue. The west coast left the pundits carefully suggesting before the polls closed on the west that Obama was moving closer to the magic number of 270. Once Ohio went for Obama the political junkies, bloggers, the religious followers of daily tracking polls knew what the television pundits knew but could not say, Barrack Obama would be President of the United States. The Fox News broadcast looked solemn. The glee and emotion that poured onto the streets of America and the world was without precedent. From African American elders who went through the worst of legally sanctioned racism to the young California surfers, phone banking on behalf of Obama it was a good night to be an American.

Obama’s election was historic but the prospects of electing another person of color or a woman to the highest office seems likely given the changing demographics of the United States. Accordingly to the U.S. census the U.S. will be a majority minority nation by 2050. Several states including the growing Latino population and the democratic party’s overwhelming victory amongst this group is great for the future of the democratic party. A Latino President in the next 50 years seems likely.

Hillary Clinton’s impressive showing in the democratic primaries coming close to defeating Obama and the strange rise of Sarah Palin on the republican side makes the election of a woman not only possible but also likely.

Will there be another white male president or did George W. Bush ruin it for white males for the next few election cycles to come? It’s quite possible to have 8 years of Barack Obama followed by 8 years of a Bill Richardson or 8 years of a moderate republican like Susan Collins followed by eight years of say a Deval Patrick Presidency. Certainly by that time Americans would have forgotten how bad the George W. Bush presidency truly was and would be posed to a politician and former entertainment reporter, some guy named Billy Bush.