This is the first time I've laughed out loud at that joke.

"You sure used a lot of words to show that you brainless twit."

. . .

'America, we are better than these last eight years. We are a better country than this.'

This was a triumph. I'm making a note here: huge success. It's hard to overstate my satisfaction . . .

For a few precious minutes last night, it truly felt as if there had been a sudden outbreak of common sense--that we had finally done something meaningful and right. For a moment, I honestly could not understand what I was feeling. It was pride. Pride in my country. How corny is that? Or more to the point: What does it say about us and our recent history that for many people my age and younger, patriotism and being 'proud to be an american' has fallen so completely out of fashion? Is it not significant that my feeling of pride for our nation was immediately accompanied by the initial disbelief and surprise that I was feeling it at all?

This wave of euphoria that accompanies being witness to history unfortunately breaks upon even a cursory inspection of comments posted by Joe the Alledged Everyman on any given blog or message board. Ubiquitous are the comments crafted of outlandish allegations about our President Elect and our future that are almost as unbelievable as the sad truth that anyone actually believes them. The hatred is palpable in a way that unfortunately guarantees the conclusion of euphoria and predicates a swift return to planet Earth.

I don't like people who think hating the opposition is a criterion for supporting their candidate. My stomach tightened up as McCain was giving his extremely gracious concession speech and the crowd actually started booing at the mention of his opponent's name. It was hard to watch.

I really quite admire John McCain. I have for a very long time. It's no secret that he has often been referred to as the 'democrats favorite republican,' and true to this aphorism, he is my favorite as well.

I agree with McCain on a number of issues. I agree with him about building more nuclear power plants, I agree with him about preserving gun rights, I agree him about the troop surge, about school vouchers, and about ear marks. I deeply admire his service to this country and am thankful for his willingness to reach across the isle to get things done. I think he is a man of great character--he is no more Bush III than Obama is a marxist terrorist. McCain would have never been a puppet for Cheney like our current president. McCain doesn't subscribe to cronyism, McCain puts country before party. McCain is a great man.

So why did I vote for Obama?

Because universal healthcare is of great importance to me, but even more important is my belief that our leader should have a socially progressive agenda. I am in favor of gay rights. I believe they should be able to marry, I believe they should be able to adopt, and I believe that they should have the same protections that we would afford any other minority. I believe in a woman's right to choose. In the next term, it is likely that the president will be called upon to appoint two new supreme court justices and I am loathe to risk putting the court in an even larger conservative strangle hold.

However, I share many ideas with those same conservatives, but socially I am a liberal and it is regrettable that in order to pursue the realization of certain political ideals I share with the right that I would have to also be in league with people who I find almost as repulsive morally as I find their self righteousness in being so.

Obama is an intellectual. He is thoughtful, he is deliberate. I like that. His demeanor was another significant reason that I favored his candidacy. I'm not sure when this country started looking down on people with a high level of education. We are the most powerful and wealthy nation on the planet, the idea that we should eschew the educated man is simply ridiculous. I think our leader should be of the highest intelligence available. My mind still recoils every time I think that we elected a C average student not once, but twice (and this was after we had heard him speak out loud). Obama is an orator of the highest caliber, one who engages his audiences without hyperbole, one who inspires support without having to invoke invective.

I was simply amazed by his poise last night. I would have broke down standing there in front of all of those people, at that moment, at the realization of something that profound and hard fought. It truly has been a long time coming. A man who has that much presence and self awareness in moments that could make others waver emotionally is someone I believe I would be able to trust in a crisis, someone who I would want to entrust with the stewardship of my continued welfare.

Even taking all of this into consideration, I still never ruled out voting for McCain until I got to know his running mate. At the end of the day, I simply could not abide taking even the remote chance that this country ever be put in the untenable position of having her become our president. I feel no need to elaborate on this point.

I believe that McCain would have prefered Liberman as a running mate but that the pro-life lobby at the heart of the Republican party would have come completely unhinged. That's a shame too, because that ticket would have made me do some serious thinking about my vote. However, desperate times call for desperate measures which the McCain campaign had no shortage of over the final two months during which McCain's strategist seemed mostly determined to turn McCain into everything he loathes.

We heard the real John McCain during his concession speech, a patriot who said he would gladly get behind our new President and urged that his supporters do the same. I refuse to believe that these words were spoken from some bitter place within McCain's heart. I believe that he meant it. Just as soldiers who had only hours earlier been firing at eachother came together as one united group at the conclusion of the Civil War, so to should we the people come together behind our executive in chief now. I believe that in the mind of John McCain, it really is that simple and I admire that as well.

And finally, after watching Obama's acceptance speech, listening to the deliberate cadence of his words as he laid out his hope and vision for the future, watching the faces of the people in the crowd, seeing even reporters overcome in that euphoric wave of emotion, it was easy to forget about the hateful and the self righteously ignorant and instead embrace the notion that a critical mass had finally been reached and that there truly had been a sudden outbreak of common sense in the United States.

'The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even oneterm, but America--I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there.'

Perhaps people should just stay inside all day.