Obama scores symbolic N.C. victory

RETURNING IN TRIUMPH - Vice President-elect Joe Biden returned home yesterday for Delaware's traditional Return Day celebration in which winners and losers in political campaigns join each other to ''bury the hatchet.'' (ROB CARR/ASSOCIATED PRESS)

RALEIGH, N.C. - President-elect Barack Obama won North Carolina yesterday, a symbolic triumph that underscored his political strength as it increased to nine the number of states he claimed that President Bush won in 2004.

The Associated Press declared Obama the winner after canvassing counties in North Carolina to determine the number of outstanding provisional ballots. That survey found that there are not enough remaining ballots for Republican John McCain to close a 13,693-vote deficit.

North Carolina's 15 electoral votes brings Obama's total to 364 - nearly 100 more than necessary to win the White House - to McCain's 162. Missouri is the only state that remains too close to call, with McCain leading by several thousand votes.

Obama's win in North Carolina was the first for a Democratic presidential candidate since Jimmy Carter won the state in 1976. Of Bush's 2004 states, Obama also captured Virginia and Florida in the South, Ohio, Indiana, and Iowa in the Midwest, and Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico in the West. All total, Obama won 28 states and the District of Columbia, while McCain won 21.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Post-election poll: Majority back Obama's hope theme
The first major poll since Barack Obama's landmark victory showed the vast majority of Americans are buying into his message of hope - far more than his share of the popular vote.

The USA Today/Gallup survey, conducted on Wednesday and released yesterday, asked how people felt about Obama's election: 67 percent said proud, 67 percent said optimistic, and 59 percent said excited. Thirty percent said pessimistic, and 27 percent said afraid.

The election of the nation's first African-American president also has people more optimistic about race relations. According to the poll, two-thirds of Americans say that relations between blacks and whites "will eventually be worked out" - the highest percentage since Gallup first asked the question during the civil rights revolution in 1963.

Obama's triumph, itself, will improve race relations, respondents said - 28 percent said a lot better and 42 percent a little better, while only one in 10 say they'll get worse. The poll also found that one third of Americans called the election "the most important advance for blacks in the past 100 years," and another 38 percent called it one of the most important advances.

GLOBE STAFF

Lieberman, Reid huddle over future with Democrats
Senator Joe Lieberman, after a trip to the proverbial Washington woodshed yesterday, played coy about his future in the world's most deliberative body.

Elected as an independent from Connecticut in 2006 after he broke with most Democrats over his support of the Iraq War, he has still caucused with Democrats in the Senate. But many Democrats loathe him after he endorsed Republican John McCain for president and even spoke at the Republican convention and campaigned by his side in the final days.

Yesterday, Lieberman was summoned by Harry Reid, the top Democrat in the Senate. Afterward, Reid said Lieberman's "comments and actions have raised serious concerns among many in our caucus."

In a statement, Reid said "no decisions there have been made" and there will be "additional discussions" before the two senators speak to Democrats in two weeks to "discuss further steps."

One option would be for Democrats to strip Lieberman of his chairmanship of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

Lieberman, the 2000 Democratic vice presidential nominee, told reporters after the meeting that he put partisanship aside during the campaign, and now that the election is over, he plans to help Democrat Barack Obama deal with the ailing economy and threats abroad.

But he did not say whether he would continue to mostly vote with Democrats or not. With his vote, Democrats would control 57 in most cases, with three races still not decided from Tuesday.

FOON RHEE

Joe the plumber to launch political watchdog website
Joe the plumber, apparently not ready to leave the political stage post-election, now wants to be Joe the watchdog.

While Samuel J. Wurzelbacher quashed speculation that he plans to run for Congress, he told Newsmax.com, a conservative website, that he is launching a government watchdog group to keep President-elect Barack Obama and other politicians accountable.

In the telephone interview posted yesterday, Wurzelbacher said rather than being just one voice among 435 in Congress, he hopes to be more vocal and "better serve my fellow man" with his watchdog group. (The group's new website also promotes his forthcoming book, "Fighting for the American Dream.")

He said he's putting his dream of owning his own plumbing business on hold. "The nice thing about being a plumber, I can always go back to being a plumber," he said.

It was his plumbing business plan, of course, that first put him in the public eye. He confronted Obama on the campaign trail in northeast Ohio, telling the candidate that his tax plans would get in the way of his dream. Obama famously replied that with the struggling economy, he wanted to "spread the wealth." Republican John McCain made that comment his major campaign theme in the final weeks.

FOON RHEE