It's time to gush! Later for the analysis of all the hard choices faced by our next president, Barack Obama, but for now, let's just thrill, unabashedly, to the sound of those words. Heck, both he and we deserve a honeymoon, at least for a few paragraphs of this column.
PARIS - From the front lines of Iraq to more genteel spots like Harry's Bar in Paris, the election of Barack Obama
unlocked a floodgate of hope that a new American leader will redeem
promises of change, rewrite the political script and, perhaps as
important as anything else, provide a kind of leadership that will
erase the bitterness of the Bush years.
The nation's capital came alive after 11 p.m. on election eve, as thousands poured into the streets to celebrate a victory that everyone was calling historic. Car horns blaring, whooping and shouting, high fives all around, multi-racial crowds celebrating joyously. Historic it is, most obviously in the election of an African-American president, in a country where millions of black people could not even vote when the new president-elect was born.
So who's a real American now?
This is no time for gloating.
This is no time to get carried away by some sort of rapturous
rose-colored ROTFLMAO celebration full of streamers and confetti and
blissful weeping in the streets, all wrapped in a big creamy ribbon of
stunned disbelief, the overwhelming sense that, oh sweet God in heaven,
our wary and battered nation has finally agreed, after all these years
and seemingly all at once, to grow the hell up.
Americans tonight placed their faith in Barack Obama, who made history by becoming the first African-American to win the US presidency.
Scenes
of jubilation broke out among Democratic supporters as the US TV
networks just after 11.00pm (ET:4.00 GMT) declared that the
inexperienced but inspirational Democratic candidate had won, after a
momentous day that saw voters turn out in huge numbers.
We are inheritors of this momentous victory, but it was not ours. The
laurels properly belong to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and all of
the other martyrs who died for civil rights. And to millions more before
them who struggled across centuries and fell short of winning their
freedom. And to those rare politicians like Lyndon B. Johnson, who stood
up bravely in a decisive time, knowing how much it would cost his
political party for years to come. We owe all of them for this moment.
This longest election campaign in American history, soon to be concluded, has seen a record number of new voters registered.
In Connecticut, more than 300,000 new voters have added their names to the rolls since January 1, and a higher percentage of registered voters are expected to participate in tomorrow's election than at any time since John F. Kennedy faced off with Richard Nixon in 1960.
NEW YORK - Arab Americans are expected to vote in large numbers Tuesday, despite concerns over voter intimidation and weak outreach from the presidential candidates, representatives of major community organisations say.
The Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) has set up a voter protection unit staffed by lawyers to help dispel rumours that may have prevented some from going to the polls in the past.
