Barack Obama - what his victory means to me

Here at Market Evolution we keep away from politics preferring to focus on consumers etc. However please allow us one small political foray. The Barack Obama election victory seems worthy of a comment. But rather than comment directly we wanted to share with you a very personal account from a colleague living in New York city:

Friends --

I know this election of ours has almost felt like an election of
yours but I suspect you believed more in your minds what we have felt
in our hearts, that a rejection of change would have hastened
America's demise. But that hasn't happened and I wanted to give you a
taste of what it feels like and sounds like to be in New York
tonight. It's half past one and the streets are crowded with people,
three deep on the sidewalk. New Yorkers have climbed on their roofs
and on to their fire escapes, there's dancing on the streets, dancing
in front of cars. There's the ceaseless noise of cheering, even -
suddenly - bagpipes playing. Tonight, we even forgive the bagpipes.
Every few seconds comes the blare of another car horn and more
screams of Obama, of Yes We Can, more whoops of utter joy.

I've been here, on and off, for more than 19 years through two
Clinton victories, big wins for the Yankees and Knicks, a dozen or
more New Year's Eves and nothing has been like this, nothing has come
even close. This is the sound of a city set free for the first time
since September 11, 2001. This is us exhaling at last. For eight
years, New York has felt like another country. What counted for
America has been owned by others and governed for others. Everything
the Bush Administration did with its exclusionary policies, its
bigotry and intolerance, its religious fascism, its economic
arrogance was done to us, not for us. Obama can't solve everything
but he has already made the greatest city in the nation feel like it
belongs to America again and he has made someone who has only been an
American for 5 years feel like he belongs for the first time. Up to
now, my belief in citizenship had been shaken by a question about
what kind of country I had joined. By showing us the best of all our
selves, Barack Obama has silenced that doubt not just for me or for
us in New York, but for millions of Americans who can have faith in
America again.

And now I'm going to bed.