That is the sentiment and the reality echoed Wednesday in my local newspaper, The Fresno Bee. Nobody has seen anything like this in an election. True joy. We are already a better country.
Barack and Joe, Michelle and Jill, David Plouffe and David Axelrod and everyone: Thank you.
I bought two copies of The Bee (copies were getting scarce!), one for myself and one for my friend and health-care client staying with me for a while after his house burned. We sat together on the patio of my apartment in late afternoon before the results came in, he smoking his cigarettes and I smoking a cigar almost like Denny Crane and Alan Shore in Boston Legal. The weather was cold and as I looked up at the "Obama '08" sign on my patio door I expressed concern that perhaps Senator McCain had been successful in his last tour of Ohio over the weekend. My friend told me, "Have faith." This whole process has been a matter of faith. I am humbled over the outcome.
A previous client of mine is an ex-priest who marched with Dr. King in Alabama and still bears the scars from the barbwire he encountered along the way those years ago.
I recall the assassinations of Dr. King and Robert Kennedy in 1968 when I was eight and kept asking "Why?" out loud or within; my family saw Senator Kennedy's funeral plane pass.
Making my own cutout hockey players as a kid I added a black player to the St. Louis Blues and my mom noticed and said, "He'll probably win the game for you." I believe he did win a few.
In my thirties I married a black woman, though we later divorced. As a white man I can't claim special insight into black America but have always appreciated the incredibly diverse culture and felt a sympathetic bond perhaps from feelings of being a certain outsider myself.
And so, with countless others, I am filled with pride for Barack and our country. Our thanks must also go to Senator Hillary Clinton and President Bill Clinton. And beyond the campaign's climate, we might thank Senator McCain for his gracious and healing remarks following his defeat.
Despite the inevitable feelings and memories race brings up, we know we didn't support Barack because he is black but because he is that unique and transformational figure as described by Colin Powell though Barack's own experiences as a biracial youth in post-Vietnam America were among the elements that necessarily transformed him. How sweet still and how poignant that when our country and the world needed just such a figure, that figure turned out to be Barack.
All our communities are proud, hopeful, and grateful for Barack's strength and inspiration.
Barack and family,
Condolence on the passing of Madelyn. I have lost both my parents and all my grandparents.
Though we grieve her loss, and so close to election day, we know that she will have the best seat in the house to watch Barack's and the nation's victory Tuesday night.
From supporters William Glover, Stevin Anderson, David Anderson.
I am glad to say that as Barack campaigned Monday, October 27, in my home state Ohio I was busy sending the last of my letters to the editors of Ohio newspapers large and small.
I have sent a total of ten to the cities of Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Toledo, Youngstown, Akron, New Philadelphia (where Barack has been), Martins Ferry, Steubenville, as well as Cadiz, which is the town where I grew up and where actor Clark Gable was born.
I made persuasive arguments against McCain / Palin and for Obama / Biden. That the letters, over which I spent much time, come from an Ohio native to current Ohio residents will help.
This may not count as official campaign cred for me, but that's not the point.
Youngstown especially has seemed undecided and we will hope that letter and the others reach many such voters this last full week. Be well and safe, Barack and Michelle, Joe and Jill.
Wishing the best to your grandmother, Barack, and all your family. I too have had strong women in my life and gained the benefit of their sensitivity and wisdom. God be with Madelyn.
I continue to donate modest funds to the campaign and speak with anyone who will listen.
Just now I am writing to various newspaper editors in my home state Ohio.
I remain in the fray over various blogs, and just Thursday night somebody called me a "commie." Maybe that's a badge of honor because, however inaccurate, it shows I'm hitting home.
Though a bit of a lone wolf and an eccentric, I can be very effective in my way.
Lone wolf? Oops. Maybe that helicopter I heard circling carried Sarah Palin with her rifle!
I believe the race for the presidency 2008 was summed up in the final debate when, desperate, Sen. McCain kept swinging wildly with his punches but never connected.
As Barack said, voters are concerned about more than the candidates' hurt feelings.
Even now we don't know who McCain really is, but who his scriptwriters tell him he is.
I don't have a cell phone, and am not able to go door to door, but pledge otherwise that I'll do everything I can to help Barack and Joe get elected. I am good with blogs and letters.
I'll keep blogging here and there and write to newspapers in my home state Ohio.
I'll speak to anyone I know in Ohio who will listen. Ohio knows a native son.
As Joe campaigns in my home area of Ohio, from Warren to Marietta and back, I wish Barack well into the final debate. Sen. McCain has promised to kick a certain part of Barack's anatomy, yes? And we thought McCain said not to let your "enemy" know your intention!
I and, I hope, many others watched Frontline on PBS Tuesday night. A well-balanced report even though the Right will call it biased. McCain has been all over the board in his opinions, alliances. Barack has been consistent and organized all along. This is from a blog I left over AOL:
"If anyone saw Tuesday night's Frontline on PBS (I know, neocons), Sen. McCain has changed himself like a chameleon to get the favor he needs. Jerry Falwell? Kiss up to him. McCain has run such haphazard campaigns in the primaries and now in the general election, turning this way and that, it leaves us to ask not who Sen. Obama is but who McCain is. Does McCain know? Whoever McCain is, that's not the steady hand at the helm. Obama, however, has run everything so smoothly with support from grass roots on up (no, neocons, not from terrorist funds), and has been so consistent in his views that it leaves us to say, That's the steady hand, the vision, the hope. And, neocons? You like to chant Barack HUSSEIN Obama, right? Well, guess who McCain's transition chief will be if McCain wins. William Timmons, who lobbied on behalf of SADDAM Hussein to ease sanctions against Iraq back in the day. Two other lobbyists working with Timmons were convicted on federal charges of acting as unregistered agents for SADDAM's government."
The Timmons link was not mentioned on Frontline, but over The Huffington Post online.
The time has past for McCain to make yet another comeback.
Bring it home, Barack and Joe, and the rest of us will do what we can.
Well done, Barack, in the second of your three debates! And this was supposed to be McCain's best arena. Though the crowd had been asked to appear neutral, and did for the most part, what we saw afterward confirmed the crowd's enthusiasm for the Obama-Biden message. I can't recall anyone asking Sen. McCain to pose for a photo, but cameras were all around you and Michelle.
You made yourself even clearer while showing the bankruptcy of the Republican ticket.
As McCain keeps hammering the same old message and stoops to slander in the process, what better response than to keep tying him to Bush?
On McCain's experience. What has it merited him or our country but cooperation in S&L crisis and further deregulation into today's staggering failures, and what has his supposed military expertise done for us but help put us into our biggest military blunder ever? That's experience? Wisdom?
What wisdom or understanding or passion where none exists? What else can he say?
Our condolences to Joe and Jill Biden over the loss of Jill's mother Bonny. It is quite obvious how Bonny's lifelong love of reading affected Jill for the good. God be with your families now.
Joe, you did a splendid job in your single debate with Sarah Palin.
For my part, I have signed up two former Republican voters here in Central California, which is yet this clear Republican stronghold, for Barack and Joe.
I have contributed what little money I can afford and written over many blogs.
Over the blogs I have urged Ohio, my birthplace, to vote for Barack and Joe.
Let me pass on a little humor from my latest AOL blog, which I quote:
"Obama a terrorist co-conspirator from the age of eight? Hmm. Well, footprints have just been discovered in NV that according to LiveScience are 'the oldest-known tracks of a creature apparently using legs.' Sounds like McCain to me."
Keep up the good fight, Barack and Joe and families. You inspire us all.
Congratulations, Senator Obama, on your showing in the first debate! Keep up the good work.
You looked, sounded, and acted more presidential than your opponent.
Now focus on the battleground states like Ohio (my home state) and on issues as you do.
Already you have a great bipartisan consensus. I'm a former Republican, myself.
I understand that in the first debate, at least, you had to show your mettle and your respect to Senator McCain as the elder statesman and you did that admirably.
The next two debates, however, are the times to strike the GOP dragon's death blows.
Pin him down with Bush where he belongs and don't relent.
Say how Alan Greenspan has dismissed McCain's economic ideas.
Above all, Senator Obama, don't let Senator McCain get away with dismissing you as naive or inexperienced, especially as Gov. Palin is his running mate. McCain says that if he looks into Putin's eyes he will see the letters "KGB," but he could not look into your eyes! Say so!
Say, "Senator McCain, you can't even look into my eyes, so how will you know?"
That will be the death knell to McCain and the Republicans.
Of course, McCain's coaches will have talked to him, but bring that up even so!
Just say, "John, now it's time to get down to brass tacks."
McCain talks about his experience, yet what has it merited him or the nation he serves?
He's like a doctor who performed unnecessary surgery and almost killed his patient, and yet McCain in effect says of the counter-insurgency, "Well, we stopped the hemorrhage."
Take it to him, my man, and don't let up on it!
The Republicans work a kind of black magic and will steal the election, otherwise.
Just take it to McCain on every issue, as you said at the DNC that McCain has said how he will follow Bin Laden to hell and yet he won't even pursue him to Bin Laden's own cave!
Show that kind of tenacity, Senator, and you will win this election as you should!
I am a humble caregiver such as you aided in Oakland, CA, one day though also the writer of some twenty books of prose, poetry, fiction. I just don't make my living that way.
Still, Senator, I am doing all I can in addressing the issues over various blogs.
God be with you and Joe, Michelle and Jill, and with us all in these coming days.
