Letter to the World

Dear World,

Barack Obama is now the President Elect of the United States of America. What does this mean to all of us? Quite a bit. Barack has run a much different campaign than any ever seen in the United States. From his decision to fund his campaign using a large amount of smaller donations from citizens, to his marvelous campaign organization, the actual mechanics of his campaign simply overwhelmed anything that the opposition could come up with.

That being said, a great campaign alone can eke out a small win or loss (see 2000 and 2004), but to win a landslide like we saw tonight requires something much greater. What Barack Obama has been able to do is bring together many interests within our country. Old time labor leaders, the educated, the young, as well as Hispanics, African Americans, and those who haven't quite enjoyed the last eight years or those who have seen their 401(k)'s drop in value tremendously over the past month.

Despite this uniting message, various old divisions have re-opened in the past year. It is now time for us to unify as a country to overcome those differences and to bring about meaningful changes in our policies, whether it is in dealing with climate change, health care, government spending, or national security. I challenge each and every one of you to support our new president, and with him our nation.

Obama himself embodies the American dream. Born to an immigrant father, a teenage mother, raised by middle class grandparents; he worked his way through Columbia and Harvard, worked as a community organizer, a teacher, a state senator, a United States Senator, and is now going to be our 44th president.

What Barack Obama represents to me is all that is best about our country, and our best shot at regaining our honor as the leader of the free world. We have left behind the previous generations' hate and intolerance to embrace a new kind of politics, a new way of doing business; finding common ground and doing what is best for our collective interests. Whether it is a goal of bringing healthcare to every American, making sure that we can compete with any country, or ensuring our safety, I am convinced that Barack Obama is the right leader and enthusiastically supported him since the Democratic Primaries.

Barack Obama also represents one more nail in the coffin to the legacy of slavery, something that is still enshrined in the Constitution via the three-fifths clause. From slavery to Civil War, to reconstruction and Jim Crow. From the Civil Rights of the 60's, to a black president in the 2000's, America has come an incredibly long way in its short two hundred and thirty two years. Twenty five years ago when I was born, people would have never predicted this. Our European allies have always seen us as their "racist cousins." With Barack Obama as president, America is now the shining beacon of opportunity for the entire world to envy. We have shown that anyone has the opportunity to be president, and as a country we will not deny these opportunities to individuals based on their background. In 1960, people scoffed at the idea of an Irish-Catholic president. Today, even a darker complexion paired with the name Barack Hussein Obama, Jr does not impose a ceiling on achievement.

As Barack Obama has famously said, "There is not a liberal America and a conservative America, there's the United States of America. There is not a black America, and a white America and Latino America and Asian America - there's the United States of America."

Barack is an inspiration to us all. As the campaign has joined us all together with the words "Yes we can" those same words can be applied to our lives to encourage us to carry out whatever our dreams are. And if we are able to persevere, Yes We Can will become Yes We Did.

And that's exactly what happened tonight.

Yours,
MSC