Mission in the Media
Durban relishes US election moment
By Barbara Cole | Daily News | November 7 2012 at 02:17pm
US consul Taylor Ruggles (l) and Durban mayor James Nxumalo stand between cut-outs of Mitt Romney and US President Barack Obama. They were the VIP guests at the US consul's breakfast at the city hall
Durban - Cheers went up around Durban’s city hall on Wednesday after CNN announced that Barack Obama had won the US presidential elections.
Durban-based US consul Taylor Ruggles was hosting a special US election watch breakfast to monitor the results, the excitement and the tension as the poll unfolded back home.
The city hall was full of US flags, which put the bleary-eyed guests in the mood for the 6am start. The guests were given campaign buttons, bearing an elephant for Republicans and a donkey for Democrats.
There were cut-outs of the two presidential candidates – Obama and Republican Mitt Romney – and guests queued to pose for photographs next to them before heading over to the voting booth where they cast mock votes.
They got a sticker that said they had voted.
Ruggles said he had been up since 2.30am watching the results come in on television.
“It was 7.30pm on the East Coast on Tuesday night there and a lot of polls closed at 2am South African time when the first results came in.”
Ruggles stressed that Obama’s win was a CNN announcement and not his. And he said there were still some states to be decided. “It is a very exciting time and people must pay attention to Florida and Ohio, which are key states,” he explained.