November 4, 2008 - Today those of us who have cast ballots in our national election will have participated in the process of making history.  When our solitary choices are aggravated with the millions of other Americans’ choices we will have chosen either the first President of the United States with ancestral roots in Africa or we will have elevated a woman to rap the gavel in the United States Senate and sit waiting just an aging heartbeat away from the most powerful office in the world.  Regardless of the outcome we will have plated a landmark, a waypoint on America’s shared journey to the promised land of equality that Martin Luther King saw from the mountain top just before he was killed.

As I write those votes, those individual judgments have not yet been counted. But that coming landmark, historic though it may be, does not mark the end of our journey.  It does not represent the achievement of our national purpose to provide equal opportunity to all Americans, whatever their gender, whatever their genetic heritage.  So long as we can objectively measure a difference in my granddaughter’s claim to rewards for her achievements and that expected by her brother, then we have not reached our shared destination.  So long as we can mark a difference between the economic expectations of my grandson whose father was of African stock; from that of my grandson whose father hailed from South America; and from that of my grandson whose father was born of this country with a European heritage, then we can not claim that America has achieved that greatest of all of our ideals.

We have not reached the mountain top but this election shows that we will have climbed over a significant barrier to our progress on the way to the summit.  We will have shown that every child born in America, black, white, or brown can with perseverance and hard work can grow up to become President.  We will have shown that every child born in America, boy or girl, has a claim upon the most powerful office in our land,

That is, in itself, no mean achievement.  It is a graphic demonstration that we have achieved much in my lifetime.  But it is also a reminder that we have much more to do before we stake a claim that in America there is no more color bar and no more glass ceiling.  It is but a step on the journey, albeit a most important one, and while we may celebrate it we can not rest in our determination that we will cross over the mountain top to descend to the promised land.

After thought:

Here is the last minute attack ad

http://nationalrepublicantrust.com/video.html