Obama and the Bittersweet Moment

It was evident that when Barak Obama finished his acceptance speech on election night, it was a bittersweet moment for him.

This is the great moment when you win a campaign. The opponent has conceded. You have made the speech. Tomorrow you have to start the transition. But at that moment you just have your family come out, they play music and you wave at the crowd.

Joe Biden came out hugging his mother. Michele Obama and the two girls arrived along with other members of the families. It should be a moment of great joy.

Yet you could see the pain on Obama’s face. His Grandmother had passed away just one day before. While his acceptance speech spoke of a 106 year old African American woman who had lived to see the day that an African American was elected President, no member of his immediate family, the people that raised him, his grandparents, father and mother, were all gone. No one had survived to see “Barry” in his triumph. Yes Michele and the girls were there, but in his own way – Barak Obama stood alone. Bittersweet.

I too was bittersweet as I watched. I had worked for and supported many African American for political office: Joe Watkins, Alan Keyes and was proud to see America overcome that barrier. Yet the man who made it was of a different political outlook than my friends or me. That makes it bittersweet.

My wife and I were out a political gathering to watch the returns. A peril of working in the political field, you don’t have the luxury of just staying home to watch TV on election night.

But our 12 year old son was watching – the first Presidential election of his life where he was old enough to stay up late to watch the results. I had made sure on the drive home from school that he understood the Electoral College and would know what to look for in the results. When the count topped 270 my cell phone rang, “What now Dad?’ asked our son. He sounded hurt, he likes Sarah Palin and admires John McCain’s war story. He was worried about the troops in Iraq.

“What now?” So I told him. “As Americans and as Christians, Barak Obama will be our President. So we need to pray for him and pray that he will be a good one.”

I’m not a minister so it’s not for me to preach, but it was interesting to see a reverend who quoted Scripture today that said the same thing I told my son. Presidential historian Doug Wead gave his take that Obama would succeed and be re-elected in his post Obama Nation.

I don’t go that far. There are numerous parts of Obama’s agenda and foreign policy that trouble me greatly. My father escaped both the Nazi’s and the Communists in Poland and lived to see a Polish Pope, but not the liberation of Poland. But it was through him that I learned that you can love your country even if you don’t like its government.

But I respect our institutions of term limits (I think they should apply to Congress as well) for Presidents and the non-violent, civil transfer of power that America has championed for over two centuries. I respect the will of the American people. While I know that there will be disagreements and concerns and matters of principle that I will have to stand up for in the future, today I will take my own advice to my son.

I am proud of America for electing an African American, and Barak Obama will be inaugurated on January 20th as my President. I will pray for him.

And I will pray that he will be a good one. We need a good one.