Who Would Have Believed?

I am excited, nervous and really not believing that an African-American person might be our president and that the direction of this country, and the world, may change. The New York Times said it exactly in this morning's article The Year of Living on the Edge of Our Seats:

Candidates in many past presidential contests lacked life stories as compelling as those of Mr. Obama, the son of a man from Kenya and a woman from Kansas, and Mr. McCain, who endured years of imprisonment and torture in Vietnam.

But these two weren't the only vivid characters in a campaign that, purely as narrative, proved sensational.

Who would have believed, at its start, that Mike Huckabee was going to outlast Rudy Giuliani? That John Edwards's pledges of support for his seriously ill wife were going to give way to a public apology for infidelity?

That Mr. Obama would choose a running mate who once described him, in terms of plausible aspirants to the White House, as "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean"? That Mr. McCain would choose a running mate who could field-dress a moose and would take the state at the Republican convention with a pregnant, unwed teenage daughter in tow? (New York Times, November 2, 2008, section K, page 8).

What we all need to know, whatever the outcome is on Tuesday, is that this election is one in which voting practices were open, honest and fair. I am praying this is so and hope you will join me.

Good voting!
Becky