On Election Night one year ago today, Carol West screamed in elation when then Sen. Barack Obama went over the top in electoral votes.

West, who had just moved to Lake Wylie, S.C., called her daughter in Washington, D.C., who had had given birth to a daughter just five months earlier, and told her, “Our babies can become president!”

A year later, West said, she is as happy and optimistic now as she was that night.

“Yes, I am,” West told BlackAmericaWeb.com. “I think that it’s going to take time, but I feel more positive about things getting better than I did before.”

She said she occasionally hears partisan sniping from Republicans or people she runs across from time to time who are picking at Obama’s accomplishments - or purported lack thereof - after his first nine months in office. But West thinks most people understand, overall, that President Obama started his term with a lot on his plate.

“Things were so messed up,” West said. “But (Obama’s election) still gives black folks a lot of hope regardless.”

 

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PHOTO GALLERY: America Celebrates Obama's Historic Election

 

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Marialice Williams, a Republican from Washington, D.C., eagerly looked forward to voting for Obama last November and says her admiration for Obama has only grown.

“I was over the top with excitement on the day of the election, even though I am a Republican,” Williams said.

Today, she said, “I feel better informed about what is going on in the government than I ever have felt in my lifetime. The president’s frequent news conferences are impressive and informative. Secondly, I have never been able to remember the names of the various Middle Eastern leadership, but Mr. Obama has not only visited these people; he has suggested that they visit the United States, and indeed, it was very impressive that the president of Afghanistan came to this country, was completely humiliated and still left promising to have a runoff election. This man, Obama, not only deserved the Nobel Peace Prize, but restored my faith in those who make the decision and the process.”

USA Today’s polling research in 2008 showed Obama won 95 percent of the black vote, 43 percent of the white vote and 66 percent of the Hispanic vote. He won 69 percent of first-time voters, 89 percent of Democrats and 51 percent of Independents. He did well among single people and won across all income groups and levels of educational attainment. He won more liberals and moderates and nearly every other voting group except white Protestants, veterans and gun owners.

Black support for Obama was not universal last year, and the president has still failed to win over some people and caused concern among others.

“I felt betrayed a year ago, and I feel so now. Only now, handfuls of people are beginning to come out of their ‘Obamania’ thrall,” said Marian Douglas-Ungaro, who not only didn’t support Obama, but questioned his commitment to the black community. “There are other people who just seem to feel so much better if the person who abuses their rights has some brown pigment in his skin.”

Author Patrice Gaines, a contributor to BlackAmericaWeb.com and an Obama volunteer who attended the campaign watch party, said that when Obama cinched the victory, a white female volunteer hugged her and "shouted, 'Thank you, Jesus.' I thought I was in church."

Now, she said, “I guess I would say my feet are on the ground. I don’t think anyone could live up to my unrealistic expectations. I vacillate between being disappointed and saying, ‘Patrice, this is the reality of politics.’”

Gaines, who runs the Charlotte, N.C.-based Brown Angel Center, a nonprofit .....

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