An email I received on election day from "No More Stolen Elections" warned about trouble at the polls, assuming the election would be tight: Don't call the results too soon, beware the exit polls. My nervous family members were worried about overconfident Democrats, aware of the heartbreak of 2004. Never mind all that. Obama won such a decisive victory, with majorities in every conceivable demographic, that he can now claim a mandate.

Seeing him emerge on stage at Grant Park with the first African American family to take up residence in the White House was the most moving moment of the night.

"If there is anyone out there who . . . still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer," Obama declared. His speech echoed Martin Luther King, Jr., Abraham Lincoln, and the Neville Brothers.

"It has been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day. . . change has come."

You'd have to be dead not to get goosebumps.

Not just black and white Americans, but "gay and straight, disabled and not disabled" Obama reached out, in his speech, to everyone.

The contrast with the anger, harshness, and provincialism of the McCain campaign is hard to overstate. Although McCain's concession was gracious, his crowd betrayed the edginess that so marred his campaign. shouting "No!" and booing loudly when he called for unity.

Obama soared. Can you imagine a Republican reaching out as graciously to the other side?

"We are not enemies, but friends. I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices and I will be your President, too."

He talked about "a new spirit of patriotism and responsibility" about "service and sacrifice." Contrast that with Bush's call, after 9-11, for Americans to go shopping.

Here is the next big contrast: Obama has already assembled a transition team that has been working on issues like homeland security and economic stimulus. No more Katrinas.

There will be much to hash out and much, no doubt, to criticize. But now is a time to celebrate. The monumental change--from Dick Cheney to Joe Biden, from George W. Bush to Barack Obama, from good ol' boy heckuva job cronyism to brilliance and competence is worth savoring. Perhaps most of all, there is the major change from a country with a history of bigotry sinking to new lows of torture and illegal war to the civil rights breakthrough this election represents, the internationalism and hope a more humane and sane future.

Earlier today, my five and seven year old daughters proudly cast our votes, which they saw as theirs. They are Obama maniacs. The idea that they will feel proud of our president and our country is a completely foreign concept to me. When we were watching
election returns, their grandmother joked that, since Obama was winning across so many demographics, flipping red counties, we could immediately start criticizing him for being too conservative. My seven year old was taken aback.

Even older, more cynical progressives, now and on inauguration day, can be forgiven for having stars in their eyes. Jesse Jackson was openly weeping at the victory party in Chicago.

This is the next generation of American leadership. For all our country's flaws, it is inspiring to see it overcome a huge hurdle of racism by electing the first black President--and a center-left one at that. Obama appeals to the best parts of the American myth. That was the brilliance of his campaign.

There's plenty of racism left--white people afraid that if he won, the crowds would riot and start flipping over cars, that, as one white voter put it on NPR, there would be Jim Crow in reverse. People using ugly names like "Obama's baby mama" for Michelle. But the country has just risen above all that and elected Obama.

It's time to pause a moment and just take it in.