President Obama

Wow. I finally stopped crying. My heart is so full of anticipation and hope. Barack Obama is the President Elect of the United States! I can feel the excitement in the air. First at the polls. Even though many waited for hours, I heard that somewhere here in Cleveland, where the wait was quite long in some places, people were ordering pizzas and having them delivered and sharing them with fellow voters - Democrats and Republicans alike. That gives me such a sense of purpose and happiness to realize that perhaps the days when the rule of division, as it has been with Bush will become one of true unification.

As Tom Friedman in the NY Times said this morning:

Obama will have to reinvent government as an instrument of the common good — to regulate markets, to protect citizens against the risks of unemployment and ill health, to invest in energy independence.” But a new politics of the common good can’t be only about government and markets. “It must also be about a new patriotism — about what it means to be a citizen,” said Sandel. “This is the deepest chord Obama’s campaign evoked. The biggest applause line in his stump speech was the one that said every American will have a chance to go to college provided he or she performs a period of national service — in the military, in the Peace Corps or in the community. Obama’s campaign tapped a dormant civic idealism, a hunger among Americans to serve a cause greater than themselves, a yearning to be citizens again.”

None of this will be easy. But my gut tells me that of all the changes that will be ushered in by an Obama presidency, breaking with our racial past may turn out to be the least of them. There is just so much work to be done. The Civil War is over. Let reconstruction begin.

The real John McCain showed up last night and hopefully will lead his party back to being civilized and part of this great nation. I have great hopes that he will return to the days when he reached across the asile to embrace what is right and good and not stay his course of backward and insular thinking.

I realize that many people in 2004 were as enthusiastic about Bush as we are about Obama and are sad that he failed so miserably. Now is the time to embrace them and make them realize that even if they are evangelical Christians, Orthodox Jews and fundamentalist Muslims, there is a new President who will first and foremost protect the United States. Because if the United States is strong and respected, we can be a force for good in this world and maybe, just maybe cure its ills.

Sarah Palin said that God was going to be the one who decided this election. Well, I guess He did - not the way Sarah wanted - but it was pretty decisive. He answered her prayer that she wake up as VP, and he said NO! to her and YES to the United States of America.