Yea! It's Election Day!

Could a democracy be more robust or exciting than America's is on this very day? This has been the most exciting, most nail-biting, most fascinating, most emotionally-exhausting election I have ever seen in my entire life. And today history is made with a new African-American president of the United States of America. I'm proud to go to a new country tomorrow, the Czech Republic, represented by such a wise and inspiring leader.

Is it just me or did this election make you cry a lot? All of the women in my family cry at a drop of a hat, and this election it seemed like it was all the time. Barack would make me cry at least twice a week as I heard him speak; watching the pride of old black people at Barack's rallies made me cry; hearing a young college woman stand up and say to John McCain in a quavering voice, "Thank you Senator, for your service to our country. I appreciate my freedom." All of it made me cry!

Probably the clip that reduced my family to tears the most is Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama when he asked us "doesn't the little 7-year-old Muslim boy have the right to dream that he too can be President of the United States?" I believe that clip will be played as often as Martin Luther King's clip asking for his children to be judged on the content of their character.

The aspect of the campaign I found most worrisome was not the racism expressed, or the judging of some parts of the country as anti-American. All of that was overwhelmed by the large number of people wanting to be unified, not divided.

I was worried by what I see as an institutionalized anti-intellectualism in the Republican party. What does it say about education levels in our country when one party constantly stokes resentment toward the educated calling them "elite?" The Republican intellectuals abandoned ship in disgust.

No one really challenged John McCain when he repeatedly derided giving $3 million to the world-class Adler Planatarium in Chicago for it's overhead projector of the night sky. Thousands and thousands of schoolchildren go to that planatarium on field trips. Don't you want to increase America's scientific literacy rating from 17th in the world to 1st, John?

No one challenged him when he derided DNA studies of grizzly bears. Don't you want grizzly bears to survive in your America, Senator McCain? I do. Let's study them.

The voters who made me most personally proud were the 2.9 million people of my home state of Iowa. The voters of this state, mostly rural and 97% white, which collectively have created two universities ranked in the top 100 globally (through taxes, I might add!) proved two things before anyone else did: 1) white people will vote for a black candidate, and 2) young people will turn out and exercise their right to vote. Iowa is where it all started for our new President. That too made me cry in hope and pride!

I told all of my friends it was going to be a landslide. We'll find out tonight!