I don’t think I really believe it yet. Last night I know I couldn’t grasp it and this morning it’s still just beyond my reach.
A friend and I drove through downtown Madison just before midnight last night. Wisconsin went 56% for Mr. Obama (our county nearly 75%!), and the whole city was lit up, the streets alive with excitement and noisy with cheers and car horns. And I sat in the passenger seat with the window rolled all the way down and I don’t think I ever fully appreciated all the possibility in the world until last night.
There is still a lot to be nervous about this morning. The problems that face our nation did not dissolve with Obama’s victory. Don’t change “Yes We Can” to “Yes We Did” just yet. This is just the beginning. We have been given the
opportunity to begin, to give of ourselves and our time for good and worthwhile causes, to rehabilitate our country at home and in the eyes of the world, to do, in the words of the New York Times, “those things beyond the power of individual citizens: to regulate the economy fairly, keep the air clean and the food safe, ensure that the sick have access to health care, and educate children to compete in a globalized world… to identify all of the ways that Americans’ basic rights and fundamental values have been violated and rein that dark work back in… Mr. Obama inherits a terrible legacy.”
Garrison Keillor wrote this morning that Barack Obama has been “elevated to sainthood and now [is] expected to walk on water and turn it into wine. Meanwhile, everything he said about the national mess is utterly true and a lot more.”
So it won’t be easy.
This victory alone is not the change we seek — it is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were. It cannot happen without you. If we put down our signs and close our front doors and our hearts now, what will come of this historic moment? Keep us mobilized in the service of hope and the greater good, Obama. Give us meaningful work and we will do it.
My favorite passage from Barack Obama’s speech came near the end:
As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, "We are not enemies, but friends... Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection." And, to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote, but I hear your voices, I need your help, and I will be your president, too.And this made us all laugh:
Sasha and Malia, I love you both so much, and you have earned the new puppy that's coming with us to the White House. XD.
I am so excited for the next four years to begin.
