Barack Obama won the election, overcoming enormous obstacles. I was worried that if enough ignorant people called him anti-American, a terrorist, or socialist, he would not get elected. But the propaganda didn’t work, and on January 20, 2009, Barack Obama will be sworn in as the 44th president of the United States of America.

Of course, this is not only a time for celebrating. It is but the first step in a long, hard journey for America. Obama needs to be working harder than he ever has in his life. There will be rough times ahead. He has talked and he must walk. He has to prove that the American people didn’t make a mistake, through his policies and his actions.

I respect McCain, but I think people are looking for a different sort of president. In the battle between experience and vision, the vision is coming out on top. Let us not forget how our founding fathers had no experience in governing a nation, but they succeeded based solely on the fact that they had to succeed. When Kennedy promised Americans would go to the moon by the end of the sixties, most of us thought he was nuts. But we believed him. We hadn’t invested much into space flight, we didn’t really know what the technical aspects of a moon landing would be like. But in ’69, Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk the surface of the moon.

Sometimes that is really all it takes: such a strong desire for something that you have to succeed. It’s what they call the American dream. Not that we always succeed, it’s that we succeed when we need it most. Today can be a day to be proud to be an American, but also a day for people with a vision to come together and try building a better and stronger America. We cannot fail, but I think that is why we will succeed.

Bob