Last February I spent several jubilant hours waiting in the freezing cold of an Ohio winter on the University of Cincinnati campus to hear a man speak for hardly 15 minutes. A man who I had seen reach out and inspire the apathetic and give hope to those who felt hopeless.
Last night, I watched that same man address his supporters and the nation as the President-Elect of the United States of America while I watched from my living room. The fear that had crept over me the few days prior, born of memories of a cold November night in 2004 when I waited in a windy Copley Square for a similar speech that would never come had left me apprehensive and nervous.
But there he was…
If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.
It's the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen, by people who waited three hours and four hours, many for the first time in their lives, because they believed that this time must be different, that their voices could be that difference.
It's the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled. Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been just a collection of individuals or a collection of red states and blue states.
We are, and always will be, the United States of America.
Hail to the Chief, God bless America, time to roll up the sleeves and get to work.
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