I agree that today we are still in dire straights. And I agree that there are still battles to be fought and races to be won. There are still mistakes to be made, and crosses to bear, and nightmare scenarios to plan for. 

And yet. 

Today we have a leader who has a rational view of those problems. A leader who has training and skill and hope and intelligence enough to see us through. A leader finally, and irrepressibly, capable of greatness. How do we know? Because in his very acceptance speech, in his first act as President Elect, he told us he was fallible. He admitted to his failings. He embraced the fact of trial and error, of working to find solutions that are as close to ideal as one can reach. That is the mark of a worthy leader- a person who recognizes that it is not our failures or our difficulties that define us, but how we plan and respond to them. 

So I would like to give thanks. To a nation I feared was illogical and desperately wrong-headed, who had lost sight of the very things on which we were founded, I thank you. I thank you for proving me wrong, and fulfilling the promise we all made to one another in that most precious of documents. To the Obama Campaign, thank you for redefining, in as much as you could, the way in which a race could be run. To the people of Virgina, thank you for standing out in the rain, and taking our duty to this country seriously. And finally, if I may, a thank you to my father, Harry S. Furst, for choosing to hope. Dad, you were the reason Obama had 41% in that reddest of states, Kansas. 

Now, in the words of the only other President that has been able to make me cry tears of hope – what’s next?