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I’m Inspired by Obama’s Historic Win

What a night. After two years of campaigning, Barack Obama is now President-Elect Obama. Man, it’s a sweet feeling. Sweet because I was tired of George Bush, the Republican Party, and the endless lies and dirty campaign tactics. McCain and his endless spin factory of surrogates, negativity, and even hints of racism present in his campaign and events. Obama was all about inspiration and issues, McCain was more of the same and dirty politics. I guess I had to vent on a campaign that was challenging and frustrating to watch.

I’m optimistic about the electorate after tonight. America, in all its diversity, voted in droves tonight for change. Old, young, all different backgrounds and skin colors, gay, straight, disabled and not, America won tonight. It wasn’t the “real America” that Sarah Palin kept yapping about. Gone are the politics of division, of cynicism, of pessimism, and at least for one night, the new voter, the immigrant turned citizen, the young voter, the previously disenfranchised voter, he and she came out to vote. That was the kind of campaign that Barack ran. He motivated and inspired people who were disaffected to come out and in the process changed the dynamics of politics in the U.S. beyond just turning some red states blue.

Barack’s win shows anything is possible. Optimism springs eternal. It’s historic on so many levels. It’s a victory from my perspective because of our history of racism in this country. It wasn’t that long ago that slavery was legal, that black men counted as 3/5 of a person, that black women could not vote, that blacks had to sit at the back of the bus and drink from different water fountains. Watching Jesse Jackson cry at the victory speech was moving. He could understand the meaning of this moment in our US history. In our world history. This is a victory for hope, for optimism, for immigrants, for all those who’ve been stepped on now or in our history.

As a new father, I have hope now for my daughter, that she can be whoever she wants to be, but that it’s possible that things in our country and our politics will improve. That’s all we needed to get back on the right track. Community, unity, hope and inspiration. And now we have those things, more than at any moment in this generation. Let’s seize the moment and be all we can be, working together!