Barack Obama is under no obligation to govern like a centrist or temper his policy goals to accommodate a point-of-view that the American people have decisively rejected. Obama won. Elections have consequences.

The 2008 election presents another appropriate time when bipartisan unity government is needed more than ever.

Tonight, as Americans have decided they would prefer Obama to McCain as their next president there is a sigh of relief, and disbelief, in many quarters in the Middle East, including in Iran.

Numerous veterans are returning home to find a newly found passion for politics as we have seen first hand how America's policies affect other nations and how Washington has failed.

In the end Obama is not America`s first black president -- he is America`s first president who happens to be black. The difference is huge.

Read Election Results liveblogs from Lincoln Mitchell, Cristina Page, Daniel Sinker from Chicago, Daoud Kuttab from Amman, Jordan, plus more blogging from Andrei Cherny, Peter Daou, Robert Elisberg, Chris Kelly, and many, many more.

It is reasonable to once again expect further manipulation on election night by some Republican officials, as in 2004; should we also expect Democrats to once again concede in the face of fraud?

As Obama has campaigned, so shall he govern. And as he won, so have we won. We must preserve, protect and defend the nation we have won back.

Obama ran a campaign that began with a speech that proclaimed, "We aren't Red States. We aren't Blue States. We are the United States." And that is how he won. That is the politics of change.

Now is the time to stand together with Barack Obama and Joe Biden and the millions of Americans that are hungry for a new day, roll up our sleeves and come on up for the rising.

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The Middle East is divided between disbelief and excitement as well as apathy. Many can't believe that America will indeed elect a black man with African roots and a Muslim father as president.

To be sure, the failing economy provided Democrats the context they needed. But a candidate with a little backbone gave them the ability to convince voters to take a chance on change.

Our neighborhood has had many more Obama lawn signs than McCain, by a a ratio of almost 10:1. Today someone drove through this part of the town and stole all of the Obama signs.

This morning at 7:08 am, I voted alone for the first time in twenty years. I walked the four blocks to my polling place at a local church without my usual entourage -- at least one or two kids and a dog.

Today America is going to produce the greatest civil rights demonstration in the history of the world.

The all but unanimous conclusion from my time taking calls from folks on Radio France was a simple one: "Barack Obama is 'le rock star.'"

When my mother got married, my grandfather said he'd shoot my dad with a shotgun (an inauspicious but common beginning for an interracial marriage).

About the Cartoonist  |  Reprint Policy Because it's Election Day, I'm not going to give a detailed analysis of the past week's polls, as I...

In the U.S., the possibility of an African American president does not presuppose the end to color prejudice any more than the election of Mandela meant an end to inequalities in South Africa.