Barack Hussein Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States on Tuesday, sweeping away the last racial barrier in American politics with ease as the country chose him as its first black chief executive.

Mr. Obama’s election amounted to a national catharsis — a repudiation of a historically unpopular Republican president and his economic and foreign policies, and an embrace of Mr. Obama’s call for a change in the direction and the tone of the country. But it was just as much a strikingly symbolic moment in the evolution of the nation’s fraught racial history, a breakthrough that would have seemed unthinkable just two years ago.

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Bush and Vice President Cheney represent a failed conservative era -- and they know it. As the administration moves into its last 100 days, there seems to be a flurry of activity: regulations to forestall Obama's new era of accountability; a flood of contracts to reward friends and lock in commitments; a Wall Street bailout that is pumping money out the door.

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The head of the Republican Women of Otero County refused to resign after calling Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama a "Muslim socialist."

Otero County GOP chairwoman Sassy Tinling says that when Marcia Stirman refused to quit, the rest of the board of the Republican Women's group gave Stirman their resignations.

Tinling also says the county GOP executive committee disassociated itself from the GOP women's group.

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