Yes, we are!

Now we know. America is ready. More than a century after the Emancipation Proclamation, a black man has been elected to the highest office in the nation founded on freedom and equality.

In a way, it only took eight years to get to this historic occasion. Eight years of misfires, misfits and misoverestimating weapons of mass destruction. Only the worst President ever could have brought us to this joyous state of thanksgiving.

Imagine if Al Gore had assumed the office to which he was elected. If he had called Bush’s bluff and thrown prep-school decorum to the wind, we might have had to wait another hundred years for a leader like Barack Obama.

Obama, more than anyone, sensed this was his time. He risked upsetting the Democratic Party’s apple-cart by unseating Hillary Clinton, its favorite daughter, with a stunning plurality in places like Wisconsin and Iowa where uttering the Clinton name is like rubbing the genie’s lamp and letting the votes spill forth.

He didn’t wait for his turn, he took his turn. In politics, that is a huge no-no.

When I served as a Judicial Convention delegate in Manhattan, party leaders would often try to quash the candidacy of one fully qualified judge for another who had been waiting longer. In NYC schools, a teacher with seniority gets to teach in the coveted specialized high schools before a younger teacher who may have special talents. There is an apparent fairness to this process, but it doesn’t always lead to the best and the brightest being in positions of power and leadership. In those high schools, it often results in a population of the brightest students being taught by people who hung in the longest and are most eager for retirement.

Some of McCain’s supporters felt the Presidency was his due after years of sacrifice on behalf of his country. Certainly we all owe McCain a debt, but not something as great as our future.

With more than a month to go until embarking on the full court press of his administration, Obama appears in full command, even as he defers to the unprecedented President who currently occupies the Oval Office. That’s good, since it will take time to undo the misdeeds of the last eight years.

Even as the world faces the prospect of economic ruin, optimism is rising. Republicans no longer seem to fear that the man with the funny name will run us headlong into Socialism, or buddy around with terrorists, or turn us all Muslim. Of course, they never did fear those things. They just wanted us to fear. Fear is the fuel that kept the Bush administration going so long.

Fear is a potent weapon, but not as potent as optimism perhaps. Or democracy. After the last two elections, American democracy seemed to be at risk. The prospect of another prolonged process of counting and recounting, of hanging chads and switched electronic votes, was almost as frightening as another four years of Bush/Cheney.

But this election was different. When I volunteered for Obama in Pennsylvania, I was struck by the organizational prowess of this candidate. Training was efficient, tasks were clear and well-defined, voter lists were vetted as thoroughly as his cabinet will be. It is this sense of clear expectations and follow-through that fuels my optimism for the Obama presidency. If anyone can lead us out of the abyss Bush has led us into, it is the President-elect. But he will need all of us—not to shop our way into the future but to work together as a united nation. Are we ready?

Yes, we are.

- Cass Collins