Thank You Barack Obama

Thank you Barack Obama.

Thank you for four years ago making me say out-loud " Why can't he be our candidate?"

Thank you for blowing away the ether of complacency.

Thank you for beating that maver-"ICK" and his running date.

Thank you for being patient with this insane process we call Democracy.

Thank you for your ambition and your drive, your mind and your gravitas.

Thank you for recognizing the needle and the damage done, the needle, our addiction
to more, better, faster, greasier, dirtier, celebrity lifestyles and prescription poisons and the damage done, the Economic Crisis, the Health Care debacle, the State of Education. This is AMERICA. Health and Education should be #1.

Thank you for understanding World History, Geography, countries and cultures, religions, customs and America's tarnished reputation in those very countries.

Thank you for voting against the War and for continuing to voice that opposition.

Thank you for your brilliant campaign and campaign managers and your staff.

Thank you for choosing Joe Biden.

Thank you for leading and inspiring me.
You didn't do this alone. You knew it was going to take the three generations of black women in Ypsilanti, MIchigan as well as Jose, the latino plumber in Miami or Ron Howard putting on Opie's toupee or my daughter, Annie and her friends at an Ohio college who are voting for the first time in their lives or my local friends, the busy multitasking hordes who called and knocked and walked your walk or Wendy Riva, the mother and activist in Santa Monica, who grabbed me on the street and within hours had me, t-shirted and bumper-stickered and hooked up to the Obama campaign. Me, this middle aged, privileged, white woman whose own mother was once such an ardent Democratic ( Kennedy ) supporter, that she was offered an ambassadorship in the Johnson administration. Me, who prior to this election did shit. Oh, I gave some money to Gore and Kerry and except for my husband's trip to Florida to canvas for Kerry, we just bitched and complained and did nothing.

Thank you for making me, after another dinner of political bitching by left leaning, well meaning, show off business types, say...well, what are you doing to change this?

Thank you for getting me to Michigan to see places I never would have seen and meeting people I would have never met and getting me to see the abandoned factories and businesses that can be re-tooled and retrofitted to a green technology and a green industry.

Thank you for getting us all, both sides of the Divided States of America to pay attention to our civic duty and moral responsibility.

Thank you for reminding us that this next period of time will be hard. That there are no easy answers. That there will be sacrifice. There will be blood. There will be sweat. There will be tears.

Thank you for marrying Michelle Obama and being the kind of father you are to your daughters.

Thank you for your grace.

Thank you for your leadership.

Hillary Clinton, who I supported and whom I believe you should bring in to your cabinet (see Team of Rivals) wrote: it takes a village to raise a child. I say it takes a leader to raise the village.

The village needs one leader and you, thank God and your hard work and the grass rooted folks who helped you, are that leader.

So lead us Barack Obama.

We will follow you IF as Rudyard Kipling wrote:

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream -- and not make dreams your master;
If you can think -- and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings -- nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And which is more; you'll be a Man, my son!

Thank you Barack Obama for making me believe again in the American Dream.

Read more reaction from HuffPost bloggers to Barack Obama's victory in the 2008 presidential election