What Obama's Election Means

Not that I had or have anything against Barack Obama.

I simply could not vote against a man who served his country with such honor and esteem and who suffered so much for it.

John McCain has endured more than most of us can imagine, and I could not tell him that he did not deserve my vote.

That being said, I confess that I fully expected Obama to win.

And I also confess that I'm not sad he did.

Because if Obama's election proves anything, it proves that the Republican Party's rhetoric for the last thirty years has been right: America is, in fact, the greatest country on the face of the earth and that anybody who follows the rules and works hard can be anything they want to be. There are no more victims, no more excuses, and no more reasons to doubt that the people who put this great experiment in motion had it wrong. America is not only a good idea, America works. And the election of an African-American President, regardless of party affiliation, screams that great truth out to the world.

We may disagree on politics.

We may be a hodge-podge of different races and nationalities and religions and ethnicities.

But when you strip away all of the things that divide us, this remains: we love our country, and we look out for each other.

We are the realization of past dreams, and the hope of the future.

We are the "shining city on the hill."

We are all Americans.

And when we say that race, religion, nationality or creed shouldn't matter when it comes to the true measure of a man;

When we say that "we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal,";

When we say that the United States is the land of opportunity;

When we say "We the people of the United States,";

When we sing that the "Star-Spangled Banner yet wave[s] o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave,"

By God, we mean it.