The President-Elect

When I was hustling my kids to school this morning, I saw the woman who stood behind me in line to vote yesterday. We smiled at each other and as she came up alongside me, she said, "Wasn't that incredible?"

And it was. The whole thing was incredible. Reading the New York Times this morning, I was reminded of that period in April when I thought maybe Obama would lose, when Michelle Obama went on the Colbert Report and said, "I believe my husband will be President," and I so wanted to believe her, but I wasn't sure. Clinton was coming on strong, there was that whole "bitter" comment about people with guns, Ohio was impossible. Things looked bad. But Obama's dcampaign stayed the course, and now, unbelievably, I feel like we have a President-Elect whose demons seem to run toward the need to control and not the need to unleash. I believe we'll have a president who can actually govern because he will listen, consider, decide, persuade, and lead.

Obama in his speech and in his campaign also reminded me, for one, that the work is done not on the big stage but brick by brick, hand by hand, person by person and that leadership harnesses that work and power asks for help. Can you imagine Cheney thinking power asks for help?

It's a whole new day.