I didn’t cry for an hour and a half. I watched dozens of other people weep and shout and wail and fling themselves to the floor with happiness; I watched pundits variously expound thoughtfully, babble incoherently and fumble for words before simply going mute. I did join my wife and kids in dancing with joy to a couple of my favorite – and now forever Obama-rific – songs:

George Michael – Freedom ’90 (live) (download)
Dixie Chicks – Truth No. 2 (download)

But it wasn’t until the close of Obama’s magnificent victory speech, after the pageantry and the big extended-family waveathon … it wasn’t until everyone else had left the stage, and Obama turned back and gave one last salute to the crowd, that I began weeping uncontrollably. A headache I had been nursing all day finally dissipated, and the tension I’d been carrying around for two months … for two years … for eight years, really, finally seemed to melt away.

It was at that moment I realized I couldn’t write the column I was planning for today – the one in which I suggested that after all the name-calling, the vilifying and the brutishness of this campaign, I didn’t feel sorry at all for the emotional pickle in which McCain’s most intemperate supporters must find themselves. Not because this problem doesn’t exist for them, but because Obama’s speech renewed my hope that even those folks will soon cool their jets.

“In this country,” he said, “we rise or fall as one nation, as one people. Let’s resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long … And while the Democratic Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress … As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, we are not enemies but friends. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection … And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices. I need your help. And I will be your president, too.” (more…)