Updated: Wed Nov. 05 2008 1:43:21 AM

ctvtoronto.ca news

With fellow expatriate Democrats screaming their joy at the election of Barack Obama to the U.S. presidency, Barbara Haynes stood silently with tears streaming down her cheeks as she tried to absorb the history she had just witnessed.

"I'm 50 years old. I never thought I would see this in my lifetime," she told ctvtoronto.ca on Tuesday night, referring to the fact that her fellow Americans had elected a black man as president.

In the background, U.S. Democrats and their Canadian supporters chanted "O-ba-ma!" and "Yes we can!" People hugged, cried, laughed, danced and waved the Stars and Stripes.

Growing up in the farm belt around Champaign, Ill. (she also lived for a time in the southern state of South Carolina), Haynes remembered growing up in an America where her black friends couldn't get a motel room for a night.

"And now look how far we've come," she said as hundreds of people celebrated at the Democrats Abroad party in the Plaza Flamingo nightclub at College and Bathurst.

"I have faith in him," Haynes said of Obama. "I hope we're this excited to vote for him again in four more years."

Sheryl Stephenson and Allan Wickin moved to Canada from Akron, Ohio in July. They came in part because of disgust at the vote manipulation that took place in Ohio in the 2004 campaign, where George Bush won by about two per cent over Democrat John Kerry.

"After the election, we said we were going to move up here," said Stephenson -- a Kerry volunteer in 2004 -- before the results were announced, who said she witnessed people being disenfranchised there four years ago. 

After Obama's victory became known at 11 p.m. ET, Wickin said, "Now we live in Canada because we want to live in Canada." Stephenson pronounced herself "hopeful" about her homeland.

Ann Irman, also from Ohio, is now a Canadian citizen.

"For the first time in a long time, I have hope," she said, adding she feels privileged to be a citizen of what she calls the world's best countries.

Although her day-to-day life is in Canada now, "I never wanted to give up my American citizenship. That's part of my soul, right? And now my soul has been restored," Irman said.

A 21st-century campaign

Obama's march to the presidency formally began in Springfield, Ill. on Feb. 10, 2007.

Back then Sen. Hillary Clinton, wife of former U.S. President Bill Clinton, was considered a prohibitive favourite. She did have 18 million supporters, but Obama prevailed in an epic struggle. As a lonely reminder of her historic run, a "Hillary Clinton for president" sign was propped in the corner of the Plaza Flamingo stairwell to the second-floor room. Someone later removed it.

In defeating McCain, the Arizona senator and former prisoner of war in Vietnam, Obama raised more than US$600 million.

But Stephenson and Wickin noted that sum was raised in small amounts. They had donated $100 each.

The press framed it as Obama outspending McCain, "but the Internet has made is possible for little people to make a difference with their money as well as their support," she said.

"His supporters are not Exxon, Mobil and General Motors, but me -- I'm his big supporter," Wickin said.

Alex Sirota, vice-chair of Democrats Abroad in Canada, said Obama had run "an unbelievable 21st century campaign" with his mastery of online technology to fundraise and organize -- and willingness to trust the grassroots.

He predicted that Obama will boost the U.S.'s "social cohesion" -- a quality he praised about Canada -- by adopting some 19th century techniques such as hiring Republicans into his administration and delivering his trademark 20th century oratory.

Sirota said there were about four times the number of people at Tuesday's event compared to 2004. Coincidentally, the attendance at a similar event for Republicans Abroad plunged this year.

"I would estimate there's about a quarter of the number of people here that there was four years ago," Matt, a server at Front Street's Lone Star Texas Grill, told ctvtoronto.ca. They started leaving when the networks declared Obama the victor, he said.

A few stragglers with Republicans Abroad didn't want to talk to the media, but Matt said the group of about 50 were great customers who tipped well.

Toronto politicians

Mayor David Miller and NDP Leader Jack Layton were two notables at the Democrats' event, along with Coun. Adam Giambrone.

Miller, sporting an Obama button, told reporters he had met Obama in Florida in May.

"He is amazing," he said. "The thing I care about so deeply -- cities. When I heard him speak, he said, 'For too long, we have thought about cities as the problem. They're not the problem; they're the solution.' And he spoke so eloquently about why cities are the future."

Obama will resonate in Canada "because he speaks to so many values Canadians believe in too," Miller said.

Layton said he was there to share in the "history-making moment," but also because a "majority of Canadians share values that we see a majority of Americans expressing tonight."

He believes Tuesday night's election is a "transformational moment" in American politics.

"The American people have clearly said they want a new captain and they want to chart a new course," he said.

Layton said he hopes that Prime Minister Stephen Harper joins the "movement for change" that Obama represents as he works on a speech from the throne for Parliament's return on Nov. 18.