Just Hours Until Election Day 2008

It was a long first day back to work after a week spent in sunny Florida. As the day progressed, I found my attention span sinking farther and farther away from what was going on at work and more on the historic nature of Election Day 2008. If someone had told any of us in 2004 that George W. Bush would be re-elected and that four long years later we would be on the cusp of electing the first African-American President in the history of the United States, we would have likely laughed at them as delusional.

Indeed, even just two years ago, the prevailing wisdom was that this election would be between yet another white male Republican and Hillary Rodham Clinton. However, 2008 turned out to be the year that would break a number of barriers with both the first serious female contender for a major party presidential nomination and the first African-American contender who has been able to stitch together a coalition of white and minority voters unlike this nation has ever seen before. What many dismissed as nothing more than soaring rhetoric has grown into a movement of unheralded performance. The next president will face challenges that a national leader has not seen for many years, probably not since the Great Depression. I believe that next president will be Senator Barack Obama; and, he will need the support of all Americans.

So, in the morning, let us all go out, cast our ballots, and enjoy the amazing democratic experiment started by our founding fathers so many years ago. I have to believe that our founding fathers would look proudly on at the success of their experimental new approach to governing a great nation. Does our nation face problems that seem daunting? Yes. Are we divided in so many respects than ever before? Yes. But despite our problems, our divisions, and the stain to our national image by a Republican presidency run amok, we may yet still serve as "that shining city on a hill" to the world.