My street erupted with shouts and car after car passed with horns blaring. Two of my neighbors were running up and down the street with their children in their arms.
“Obama won! Yes we can! Obama is OUR president!” they shouted.
I couldn’t breathe, yet I was crying. I have never had or seen such a reaction in my life. We did it. Not only did America elect the first black president, but we elected the best choice by a landslide.
“America tonight has lived up to its promises,” said “The Daily Show” host John Stewart. And he is exactly right. We did.
The 2000 election was the first presidential election I participated in. I don’t need to go into details of the following eight years, but feeling burned from the past two elections, I had a lot of fear going into this one.
It looked good for Barack Obama but I couldn’t let myself feel relaxed; something can always go wrong. I think that’s why when Stewart announced to my living room that Obama had won. I felt like the air had been knocked out of me and I was a little bit dizzy.
During the last week I kept telling myself, “Wait ’til this is all over and you will feel silly.” And I do. I feel silly because I actually believed McCain might be right when he said election night would be a late one. I had thought, “Maybe he is the Comeback Kid,” and “Maybe I will be disappointed for the third election of my voting life.”
But today my friends, I am happy to announce my fears were for naught. America has pulled together and is moving forward. America has spoken and we said “349-Obama, 163-McCain!”
As I watched Sen. John McCain give his concession speech, I saw the McCain of 2000. It was the man I might have voted for if he had won the nomination eight years ago. Back then I felt he was honest and I liked what he said. However, the McCain I had come to know in 2000 is vastly different from the one who chose Gov. Sarah Palin as a running mate.
His concession speech was graceful and uplifting. He spoke of his love for this country and praised Obama. “I urge all Americans who supported me to join me in not just congratulating him, but offering our next president our goodwill and earnest effort to find ways to come together,” he told his supporters.
What impressed me most about McCain’s speech was his sober calmness and acceptance. He was sincere, gracious and the most honest he has been since he started this campaign.
President-elect Obama’s eloquent speech was icing on the victory cake. He spoke of a united America, one that works together to achieve greatness, “block-by-block, brick-by-brick, calloused hand-by-calloused hand.”
“This is your victory,” he said.
A friend had told me once, while watching Obama’s speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, that someday Obama would be president. I remember asking him if he really thought that and all he said was “Watch.”
This same friend now lives in Chicago and was at Grant Park for the massive 125,000-people gathering to celebrate the historic outcome and to hear Obama.
He said being there felt like nothing he’d experience before. There was an overwhelming feeling of joy and hope.
Watching the reactions across the country, I could see the joy and hope he was talking about in everyone’s faces. I could hear it in the shouts coming from the streets and I could feel it in my heart.
Barack Obama is the next president of the United States of America. He is my president.
Serafina Costanza is a senior journalism major and the assistant opinions editor for the Daily Forty-Niner.
I knew this was going to be over. The biggest concern now is if defiant McCain supporters let this defeat get the best of them and start plotting some death penalty-worthy act of retaliation.
Get the security ready, President Obama.