Yes We Did.

It's Election Night:

A few minutes after Barack Obama became the president-elect, I called my black friend and said, "A Brother in the White House.  What's that all about?"  We had a great laugh but I think maybe he'd been crying a little bit.  What's that all about?  I haven't been able to wipe this smile off my face since California went to Obama and put him over the top at a second after eleven and that was about an hour-and-a-half ago. 

It was the cracking-voiced reaction of the blacks I saw on TV tonight, Eugene Robinson on MSNBC and Juan Williams on FOX that affected me most.  (And wasn't best part of the night watching those Fox News Channel creeps with the looks on their faces that said, "We are SO screwed"?) 

I'd never realized how much the election of Obama would mean to black people.  How could I?  I'm a white dude.  I just wanted to get a good man in there.  Which we did.  But, to be honest, I hadn't really thought about how blacks would take it before tonight.  it touched me to see how much it meant to them.   

I looked at that crowd of several hundred thousand gathered in Grant Park and I told my wife Jeannie, "I just hope this means we can all get along better now, you know?"  It's what I want more than anything from this new day.

The thing I will remember most about the presidential campaign of 2008 was the Labor Day trip my family made to downtown Detroit for an Obama rally.  I was born in Detroit and I've lived here pretty much my whole life and I've never seen the place so happy.  I've seen it on fire, literally, but I've never seen it happy.  We were walking back to the car and passed a parked school bus filled with kids from Southfield Lathrup High School.  Black kids.  A whole bus full of them.  One of the kids stuck his head out the window and asked, "You for McCain?"  "Oh, hell no," I said.  "Obama!  Obama! Obama!"

The bus went completely nuts.  It was rocking as the kids cheered along with me.  What a great time we were having together.  I'll never forget it.  I'll never forget this night.

I watched McCain giving his little concession speech in front of his little crowd of rich people with their cocktails glasses clinking at a resort for rich people in Scottsdale and then I saw We the People gathered in a city park in Chicago waiting to hear the winner speak.  It was the perfect metaphor for what this whole campaign was about.  Not to mention the perfect ending to it.

Yes we can?  Yes, we did!