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On the Ground....post that election

Perhaps this piece in the NY Times by Nicholas Kristof is just a small reflection of what has been happening in the US - certainly for those outside the country - in relation to the election but it is an interesting postscript nevertheless:

"This is a victory not for one man or one party, but for opportunity itself. Right now I’m trying to get my 11-year-old daughter to bed, but she is celebrating and insists that she wants to wait up half the night. Several times this fall she and a friend spent their afternoons and weekends selling lemonade and cookies to raise money for Obama, and she’s just thrilled at what appears to be the outcome. It’s clear that she’ll be telling her grandchildren about this night.

Martin Luther King, Jr., who helped start the campaign that made this possible, used to note progress in Birmingham by telling supporters of a former slave who once said: “We ain’t what ought to be, and we ain’t what we want to be and we ain’t what we’re going to be. But thank God, we ain’t what we was.” That’s a useful assessment of the nation’s progress as well.

Journalism is supposed to be the first rough draft of history, but now it’s the second draft — blogging is the first. So here’s your chance to sketch out the first draft of this election’s meaning. How do you see the significance of this election? When historians look back, how will they see this evening? How do you see it?

(Update: I’ve given up on getting my daughter to bed — she’ll be up partying all night. And her giddiness is reflected in the excitement of young people and Obama supporters all around the country.)

(Update 2: In a recent column about the chance that Obama’s election would “rebrand” America, I quoted from a conversation with a friend in Beijing who just couldn’t believe that a black man might be elected. “What do white people think about that…?” she asked me then. “Are they upset?” Well, I just heard from her again, and she’s celebrating. She has somehow become an Obama fan in the last week, apparently figuring that if white Americans can support a black, then so can Chinese in China. We are the world….)

(Update 3: So my daughter staggered off to school this morning, groggy but exhilarated. She feels a bit more of a stake in our country and a bit more idealistic than she did yesterday. I’m truly worried that she’s going to come home this afternoon and ask to drop out of middle school so that she can join the Peace Corps!)"

Footnote: Read the comments and responses to Kristof's piece......

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