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Waking Up To A Different Country

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By THOMAS FRIEDMAN

The New York Times

Published: November 6, 2008

And so it came to pass that on Nov. 4, 2008, shortly after 10 p.m. Eastern time, the American Civil War ended, as a black man - Barack Hussein Obama - won enough electoral votes to become president of the United States.

A Civil War that in many ways was decided by the battle in Gettysburg, Pa., in 1863 concluded 145 years later via a ballot box in the very same state. For once Barack Obama carried the critical electoral battleground of Pennsylvania, his victory as the 44th president of the United States was all but assured.

In his famous Gettysburg Address, President Lincoln urged every American to take on "the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far nobly advanced." That work remained unfinished, though, for a century and a half. For despite decades of civil rights legislation, judicial interventions and social activism - despite Brown v. Board of Education, Martin Luther King's I-have-a-dream crusade and the 1964 Civil Rights Act - the Civil War could never truly be said to be over until America's white majority actually elected an African-American as president.

That is what happened Tuesday night, and that is why we wake up to a different country. Yes, the struggle for equality is never done. But we can start afresh now from a whole new baseline. Let every child and every citizen and every new immigrant know that from this day forward: Everything really is possible in America.

How did Obama pull it off? To be sure, it probably took a once-in-a-century economic crisis to get enough white people to vote for a black man. And to be sure, Obama's better organization, calm manner, mellifluous speaking style and unthreatening message of "change" all served him well.

But there was also the "Buffett effect," which actually trounced the supposed "Bradley effect" - white voters telling pollsters they'd vote for Obama but then voting for the white guy. The Buffett effect was just the opposite. It was white Republicans telling the guys in the men's grill at the country club that they were voting for John McCain, but then quietly going into the booth and voting for Obama, even though they knew it would mean higher taxes.

Why? Some did it because they sensed how inspired and hopeful their kids were about an Obama presidency, and they not only didn't want to dash those hopes, they secretly wanted to share them. Others intuitively embraced Warren Buffett's view that if you are rich and successful today, it is first and foremost because you were lucky enough to be born in America at this time - and never forget that. So, we need to get back to fixing our country; we need a president who can unify us for nation-building at home.

And somewhere they also knew that after the abysmal performance of the Bush team, there had to be consequences for the Republican Party. Electing McCain would have, in some way, meant rewarding incompetence. It would have made a mockery of accountability in government and unleashed a wave of cynicism in America that would have been deeply corrosive.

Obama will always be our first black president. But can he be one of our few great presidents? He is going to have his chance because our greatest presidents are those who assumed the office at some of our darkest hours and at the bottom of some of our deepest holes.

Bush & Co. did not believe that government could be an instrument of the common good. They neutered their Cabinet secretaries and appointed hacks to big jobs. For them, pursuit of the common good was all about pursuit of individual self-interest. Voters rebelled against that.

The Civil War is over. Let reconstruction begin.

Thomas Friedman is a columnist for The New York Times.

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