After a most amazing 22-month campaign, the 47-year old African American Junior Senator from Illinois, Barack H. Obama was elected 44th President of the United States by what will eventually be a landslide number of electoral and popular votes.
Shortly after 4:00 GMT, the states of California, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii pushed him over the magic number of 270 electoral votes. How fitting and bittersweet that the state that put him over the top was his adopted birth home of Hawai where he had to take a most bittersweet journey to visit his beloved grandmother who passed away mere hours before seeing this amazing moment.
306 days after the Iowa caucuses, in another 76 he will become President of the United States. It is a day I never thought I would live to see. After eight long years of shame and division, America voted both for change and healing.
My country has changed history. We have a new chance to be a beacon of hope for the world, to smash our thuggish global reputation and eliminate cynicism for good. To become, as Gandhi said, “the change we to see in the world.”
40-years after the speech by the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. ”the sons of slaves and the sons of slave owners” will truly sit together at the same table.
The tears have been streaming down my face for an hour. A deep cathartic release of 50 years of personal frustration and even longer for my father and father’s father… the generations who suffered and did not see this day. I was barely able to get the 1st paragraph up on the screen through the tears.
The strongest were reserved for the moment I saw the Reverend Jesse Jackson standing in the middle of the crowd weeping unashamedly, two long rows of tears just streaming without stop.
President-elect Obama… Wow.
To my American friends:
Last night the vision of two men, two families, two colors in Grant Park, struck me deeply for the first time. But as I witnessed the enormity of what you had achieved, I realized that breaking an obvious barrier was not what I was witnessing at all. That historical moment was so much more, so much bigger than black or white, young or old, rich or poor, liberal or conservative, Republican or Democrat.
I believe President-elect Obama’s campaign succeeded not only because America was ready for a change from what was broken in the White House. I believe Barack Obama won the Democratic nomination and ultimately achieved such a decisive, inclusive national victory last night because of what was broken in the hearts of the American people.
It was Einstein who said you can’t solve a problem with the level of thinking at which it was created. Obama’s steadfast commitment to focusing on the vision of what can be, to address the differences of opinion for what they are, to rising and staying above the noise and negative fray –raised the tide and tone to one worthy of the campaign, the office of the President, and the people of the nation he serves.
I know this is what all of you have sought, what you deserve, what you voted for and ultimately, what you have achieved. This was not a victory of a party or a color, nor an indictment of the alternative result. The true enormity of what you have achieved is the dream of the moment in history where a man has been judged on the content of his character and you have made him your leader.
I believe, as a fan for many years of the man who is also Senator John McCain, that last night he spoke fully from his heart, perhaps for the first time since the primaries. By expressing to his supporters his deep admiration for Obama, pledging to do all in his power to help, and urging that they give to him their goodwill and support, he rose on that same tide.
So as your neighbor and friend, whatever your views, whatever mine, I wish you well in the difficult days and months ahead. I pray that President-elect Obama will earn and deserve your support. I extend to you my gratitude for electing a man who has an ability to bring to the world the deeper, more mature, more thoughtful example of leadership and character people everywhere desire from our leaders. And I extend to you both my heartfelt congratulations, and my continued respect.
God bless.
Lisa from Canada