Sitting in a booth this morning at Broadway Diner in downtown Columbia, Sheila Burkholder smiled even as she talked about voting for John McCain in yesterday’s presidential election.

The lone Republican in a group of four friends who have met for breakfast in Columbia on Wednesday mornings for the past 10 years, Burkholder had a different reaction last night.

"I was sick," she said. But she was glad Missouri appeared to have sided with McCain and remained a "red" state.

"I am not," her friend Jan Thompson chimed in, professing she was "thrilled" at Obama’s election. Joan Beezley, another member of the weekly breakfast group, said she and Thompson were in a political minority among the typically conservative regulars at the diner.

"We wanted to high-five when we came in here," Beezley said, almost whispering, "but we decided to be respectful."

Other diners who had been discussing the election outcome were tight-lipped when it came to talking to the Tribune. Army veteran Ray Tanner was the exception.

"I was in the armed forces," Tanner said. "I was overseas. Where has Obama been? Where has McCain been? We’ll just leave it at that." Tanner served as a military policeman from 1958 to 1960 "and, thanks to Kennedy, ’61."

Nathan Fuchs, a server at Ernie’s Café at 1005 E. Walnut St., said he witnessed massive celebration of Obama’s victory last night in Columbia.

"There was just screaming over the whole town," he said. "You could hear it from miles away." The east side of the University of Missouri campus was especially ecstatic, the 24-year-old said.

"But not everybody’s happy," he said this morning, filling water glasses behind the counter. "You just missed a bigot."

With other coffee drinkers confirming his account, Fuchs said one customer who complained about "welfare voters" putting Obama in office dropped the "N-word" before leaving.

"It’s just ignorance," Fuchs said. "Republicans are just not good losers. They just want to sit there and be whiny crybabies."

Beau Lipham, 27, took exception to the angry customer’s characterization of "welfare voters," saying he was raised by a single mom who used welfare as a safety net until she could become self-sufficient.

"She didn’t pop out a kid every couple of years to keep from getting a job," said Lipham, an Army veteran who qualifies for disability but doesn’t take it. "She taught me to be self-sufficient as much as possible."

Lipham, who also works at Ernie’s, was serving in Kuwait "when Gore was elected by the people," a reference to the controversial 2000 presidential election.

"I had a bad gut feeling about Bush both times," he said, taking a sip of coffee. "I was right."

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