YES HE CAN

The New York Times headline says it all.

Barack Hussein Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States on Tuesday, sweeping away the last racial barrier in American politics with ease as the country chose him as its first black chief executive.

Mr. Obama’s election amounted to a national catharsis — a repudiation of a historically unpopular Republican president and his economic and foreign policies, and an embrace of Mr. Obama’s call for a change in the direction and the tone of the country. But it was just as much a strikingly symbolic moment in the evolution of the nation’s fraught racial history, a breakthrough that would have seemed unthinkable just two years ago.

Mr. Obama, 47, a first-term Democratic senator from Illinois, defeated Senator John McCain of Arizona, 72, a former prisoner of war who was making his second bid for the presidency. To the very end, Mr. McCain’s campaign was eclipsed by an opponent who was nothing short of a phenomenon, drawing huge crowds epitomized by the tens of thousands of people who turned out to hear Mr. Obama’s victory speech in Grant Park in Chicago.

Turnout all across the country was phenomenal, and a testament to how hungry people are for change.

This win is truly a mandate, unlike the mandate George W. Bush claimed when he barely won in 2004.

And I must say this is also a testament to how beneficial the long primary season was. By taking the primary literally to all 50 states, it gave the entire country a chance to get to know Barack Obama before the general election campaign began. It also allowed him to build an infrastructure in 50 states. So a quick shout out to Sen. Hillary Clinton for not giving up!

I would also like to point out that the glass ceiling in the Senate has cracked open a bit more. I can remember when there were just a little over a dozen women in Congress, and we now have 17 women in the Senate! Congratulations again to Jeanne Shaheen and Kay Hagen.

And while we wait to hear the results from my home state of Indiana, I'd like to send a shout out to my friends in Virginia who have been working for YEARS to turn Virginia BLUE! Congratulations, and THANK YOU!!

In giving his concession speech I think we saw a bit of the old John McCain that I had respect for in 2000. I do think given the level of frustration the country has with the current administration that Sen. McCain in the end did very well. As I have said earlier, I think the Republicans -- by accident -- nominated their strongest candidate.

And as I watch local DC residents party in front of the White House I hope George W. Bush is having a really miserable night! ha

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