OBAMA

I'd never really understood what it meant when authors write that the air is charged with electricity until last night.

The mood was similar to the Super Bowl or the Grammies or the Oscars. I was at a watching party sponsored by the College Republicans (All are Welcome, the poster said) and until about 10:30 the mood was relaxed but slightly tense. I played cards with my fellow Democrats on one side of the room while our Republican friends sat in the middle of the room, their arms crossed and eyes squinting as they watched CNN, waiting for the final results to come in. As the polls in each state closed and the result became more obvious, the room was more excited.

Finally, after California's votes were counted and Obama received his 270 electoral votes, a huge cheer went up throughout the campus center. People started hugging each other; the screaming didn't stop for thirty minutes, at least. I couldn't stop smiling.
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There are a few significant national events that grip the country so tightly that they seem to define a generation. The assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. September 11, 2001. Pearl Harbor.

Until recently, the events of September 11, 2001 and the aftermath have defined my generation. We are post-dot com boom, post-baby boomers, post-apocalypse, post-everything. We are a generation defined by terror and the reactions to terror. We are a generation that is so used to seeing real-life terror and desperation due to the mistakes of our president and the hatred and animosity directed at us from other countries. Worldwide terror and economic failure surround us, people starving and dying.

So when something good happens and the pessimism turns to optimism, it is remarkable. It is notable. It is history.

This election has been about change and hope. My generation, my beautiful generation, got its act together. We, along with millions of others, finally stood up and announced to the rest of the world that we are sick of the direction our country has been heading the past few years. The deterioration of the United States of America has not been imagined or exaggerated. Thanks to our current president, we are disrespected.

That is about to change. Barack Obama will be the United States of America's next president. I am unspeakably proud to say that my next president will be African American. My next president is eloquent. He is intelligent, and he knows what is needed to turn this country around. My next president is a man that I admire, and that is what a president should be. A president should inspire, work with the people, and work to the best of his ability to make the country he is in charge of work for its people.