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I spent most of the primary season hoping that Hillary would overcome the odds and become the Democratic nominee. I feel that Hillary has a great deal of political competence, I like her health care plan better than Obama’s (still do), and I just felt that overall she would be able to get more done.

I also like most of what I know about Bill’s presidency and she probably benefitted from some transference there. Add that to my tepid approval of Obama, my belief that women are more discriminated against these days than African-Americans and that puts me firmly in the Hillary camp.

When Hillary finally conceded I was fairly disappointed. I still viewed Obama as the more appropriate choice between the two final candidates, but I was still only tacitly on board. I kept hearing Obama’s supporters raving about Obama’s ability to inspire, and that just wasn’t doing it for me. I wanted a hard-nosed fighter that could get the work done.

That all changed Tuesday night. I still hold Hillary in high regard and think she would have make a great president. Finally, two speeches changed my mind. What is interesting to me is that it took both to do the trick. I was finally inspired, by both John McCain and Barack Obama.

Their conciliatory messages that emphasized the importance of banding together to overcome the herculean challenges that we now face made me want to be less partisan, roll up my sleeves, and work with my fellow Americans. Maybe Americans can be one and rebuild the great city on the hill. Yes we can, or at least I HOPE we can.

We will see in the years to come if we have lived too long in fear of each other’s motives, or if we can purge the poison that has been poured in our ears for decades. Robert Kennedy spoke the following words:


“When you teach a man to hate and fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his color or his beliefs or the policies he pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies, to be met not with cooperation but with conquest; to be subjugated and mastered.

“We learn, at the last, to look at our brothers as aliens, men with whom we share a city, but not a community; men bound to us in common dwelling, but not in common effort. We learn to share only a common fear, only a common desire to retreat from each other, only a common impulse to meet disagreement with force.”

If you are like I was, and still see these as lovely but empty, then please consider that they are only empty if we let them be. If we look at each other and see a bigot or a lack of faith, then these words are indeed empty, but it is our fault.