Yipppee kiy YAAAAAYYY

Okay, we can all breathe again.

I've been mulling over this Obama-phenomenon for a few weeks(an eternity in the blogosphere, sorry), thinking about why I, my kids, my co-workers, shop-keepers, grandparents, professors, maintenance workers, voters of all stripes and inclinations are drawn to Obama -- President-elect Obama!

There is the historic aspect. That can't be denied, esp. for us older folks, who suffered through those terrible years when humans acted like animals, beating on their own kind; we who witnessed the horror, the bombings, the dogs, the malevolence, even if we didn't experience it directed at us first hand. The pain still resides, but maybe it no longer abides.

But for younger voters, race was really not the issue. Obama speaks to them directly about their desire for a more honorable country, for a country they can beleive in. He understands the way technology is embedded in their world, the economies they live under. He knows the power of many minds linked in a common cause; he understands that with the internet, a true grass-roots organization can function. Not only understands, but uses effectively, brilliantly.

Obama, in his run for the Presidency, brought honor and dignity to the campaign and to our nation. He knew that we are tired of the name-calling, fear-mongering, excluding world view of the old-style politics and the older minds. Obama understands we are a pluralisitc society and we are proud of it. He gets that young people often didn't vote because there hadn't been anyone to vote for. He operates with an attitude of respect for all, even his opponents, rather than hatred towards some, and I think this is his true nature. In that respect he's more of a Christian than the current, sitting (lame-duck) president and others of that ilk.

Obama has a vision for this country that honors the principles and ideals that created it. To me, he ran not so much because he wanted to be President (although I'm sure that desire is there, too, otherwise...how could one put up with the ordeal?), but because that was the way to re-instill these values, to re-set the nation on our course,to return hope to our country. He wants to revive that combination of acceptance and opportunity that makes this country great, fabulous and unique. He means it when he says that in no other country is his story possible and we all know that to be gospel.

McCain wanted to be president, period. In the end, he sold out, resorted to doing anything to accomplish that. That's when he lost the nation's respect. He used smear tactics, he fed into the hatreds of immature, unsophisticated voters, he pandered to the right-wing evangelicals. (I can't call them Christians when they hate others so much.) And who won? Perhaps now, the Republican Party will understand that the rightwing evangelicals are a splinter group. That they don't represent America or American ideals in the slightest. That there are few young Republicans for a reason.

Only in this country is his story possible. Only this country can redeem itself so spectacularly.