YES YES YES YES YES

Remember this night folks, because this is the sort of stuff that gets written down in history books.

Tonight, America elected a black man as our President. Less than half a century ago, black people could not eat at a lunch counter with you or I, nor could they use the same drinking fountain. They were routinely disenfranchised.

And right now, America has selected a black man as our President, the individual who personifies our nation to the rest of the world.

This is momentous. Earth shattering, absolutely incredible. I will be telling my kids in the future that I voted for Barack Obama. People will look back at this night and say, "That generation did something special."

But we did not just elect a black man. We elected an individual with the highest degree of intellectual curiosity and vigor, an individual with sound judgment and a broad worldview, an individual who chooses to bridge our divisions rather than exploit them. And I'm sorry to my Republican friends, but the current occupant of the White House is the absolute antithesis of President-Elect Obama.

We showed the world that we choose to live up to our ideals of equality and freedom. Ideals that so often seem like shadows or illusions, ideals that seem out of reach for too many of our countrymen and women. "All men are created equal," our most sacred document states. For too long we neglected that. And to a certain extent, we still do. But tonight, we took a giant step towards that nebulous ideal that we always seem to be striving for.

For too long, this nation has chosen to favor the wealthy over the many. For too long, we have conducted our foreign affairs with arrogance and disdain for other viewpoints. For too long, we have allowed our people to suffer. Here, in the richest nation on earth, we have folks who cannot afford health care, cannot find jobs, cannot keep up with inflation. This is no time to play around with strategies already proven to fail. This is the time to try something new. This is the time for transformation.

Idealistic? Yes. Overly hopeful? Quite possibly. But folks, this country was founded on idealism. It was founded on the ridiculous hope that 13 backwater colonies could defeat the greatest military power known to man. It was founded on a complete change from the Old World, a transformation to a bastion of freedom and respect for human rights. I'm sorry folks, but idealism is woven through the fabric of this country. Those of you afraid of it, afraid of change, maybe you need to rethink exactly what this country is.

I've never felt so proud of my country. Absolutely incredible.