Rangel-Obama 08!

Embattled rent control crook and English Only-tax evader Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) is playing host to a massive election night party outside the Adam Clayton Powell State Office Building on 125th Street tonight in Harlem. I'd try estimating the size of the turnout, but it was really too damned crowded to tell. The main focus was the jumbo TV erected at the side of the plaza, but there was also a stage where Rangel and other bigwigs piped up periodically to address the crowd.

To call the mood celebratory would be a serious understatement. This is a crowd steeped in the historical importance of the moment, quite conscious that they're gathered in America's most famous black neighborhood to watch the election of America's first black president. That's something every classical liberal should appreciate. When it comes to state-sanctioned violence and oppression—including restrictions on such fundamentals as the right to own property and the right to keep and bear arms—African Americans have suffered the very worst that government has to offer. That's not to say that the coming Obama adminstration is going to be very good for individual liberty, but his election represents a victory for classical liberalism nonetheless.

Here are some of the photos I shot. 

You can't quite tell, but Charlie Rangel was wearing one damn fine bowtie.

This following image, or versions of it, were everywhere, even on the podium above. Just who's running for president, anyway? Isn't the dude on the left getting top billing?

Here's the free market in action, even in Obama's America!

Here's one of the capitalists selling the above pins.

No comment.

On a final, unsettling note, here's overlord Chris Matthews, overseeing all from the jumbotron.