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.
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