The election of Barack Obama is a watershed moment in American history.
Yes, it has been said repeatedly by the network anchors and even on Fox News, but it bears repeating: Obama’s victory has changed America forever.
We are not talking about his race alone. Yes, the election of the nation’s first black president is an important historical event for a nation where many citizens remember when an African-American could not even vote.
But Barack Obama transcends race in a way that few Americans can or have even tried. Race may always be a barrier between some individuals, but the Obama presidency offers a glimpse at what it is possible when we no longer allow it to divide us as a nation.
Perhaps that process has already begun: Exit polls show that Obama’s win was the result of across-the-board support. He won the majority of voters under 64, voters who earn more than $200,000 and less than $50,000, voters with advanced degrees and no degrees at all and dominated the voting among Latinos, blacks, Asians and, not surprisingly, blacks. And he ran strongly among whites, as well.
We neither know what the future will bring nor whether Obama will indeed rise to the immense challenges that we face.
But we do know that he has done something that no president — Republican or Democrat — has done for decades: His campaign was an inspirational journey of hope, change and the very American belief that we can live up to the lofty ideals that make us, at least in the past, a beacon for the world.
If he runs the country as well as he ran his campaign, this nation is in good hands.
