Exit Poll

There's something about crossing the River Thames at sunrise on November 5, 2008.

It is not the view of the east, where an ailing, once-venerable financial district that controlled the world's affairs for two centuries sits, awaiting the storms of the current times to pass.

Or to the west, the seat of Parliament, where MPs and PMs have tried to re-tool a fragile economic and political system, awaiting the emergence of someone on America's shores to take leadership in solving a crisis that was largely America's doing.

But something in the rising sun on the horizon of a country foreign to my own, the morning after an important election, makes me so proud to be from the United States of America.

Senator and President-elect Barack Obama has a lot to do to prove to the United States that his pledges for "hope" and "change" can be followed through with. But his resounding victory is a signal that the great nation of the U.S. has come to its senses.

Sen. Obama's speech, with figures such as Jesse Jackson - who laughed and cried with the great Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy - letting the tears flow, was an inspiring spectacle. It makes me not only speculate, but know, that my 4-year-old niece, and her children, will understand the truly global world that we have come to experience, and will see it possible to run for office and make a change if she is inspired to do so. And it will be so not because she may be a Democrat or Independent or Republican, but because she is American.

Still, there were the panes of bullet-proof glass shielding President Obama in Chicago's Grant Park from the realities he will encounter over the next four, perhaps eight, years. He will face white supremacists, a weakened but nonetheless fierce Republican opposition and a skeptical right-leaning segment of the populace. On Day One in office, January 21, 2009, the Obama dream campaign will necessarily transition to painful reality - when Sen. Obama must address the immediate concerns of two costly wars in western and central Asia and a financial crisis that has already affected the world in ways unprecedented.

The achievements of Obama's opponent, Sen. John McCain, must not go unnoticed. In fact, Sen. Obama's gift of oratory was often matched by that of Sen. McCain -- and it was no more apparent during the campaign than during Sen. McCain's classy, respectful concession speech from the Biltmore Hotel in Phoenix.

I have a very dear friend in the U.S. Army, who is a centrist Republican and McCain supporter. And for his sake, I do feel some sadness that Sen. McCain, a man whom I also rooted for in 2000, seems to have reached his pinnacle and political destiny, without reaching the office he so deserved -- primarily because he emerged when an even more formidable electoral force emerged in the campaign of Sen. Obama. And Sen. McCain picked a horribly inept running mate.

John McCain was truly a maverick, a voice of reason for a party that had increasingly catered to the whims of a far-right religious coalition and a war-frenetic military-industrial complex that exploited the U.S. Constitution to expand executive and extra-judiciary power under President George W. Bush. Sen. McCain was a true patriot, one of the few public servants who could stand in front of a crowd and provide cold, hard evidence that he is a "maverick" worthy of such a distinction. He braved the cruelty of war for several years, and those of us like myself who complain about cold weather or untimely subway trains can learn a thing or two from a man who suffered in prison camps and came out a strong survivor. John McCain is just as deserving of the presidency as any other public servant, and is as intellectually and politically astute as any politician. He was never given much credit for that, and I think such credit is due.

For that, I can express my hopefulness not only in Sen. Obama's victory, but the fact that a man like Sen. John McCain was finally able to get his due shot at the U.S. presidency. It reflects America's return to common-sense and dignified politics, even if it got nasty toward the end, as it always does. America's best made it to the top, and had a fair chance to win over the American public's imagination. At the age of 72, Sen. McCain likely will never run for president again. But he, like Sen. Obama, will continue to inspire myself and millions of others to fight for what is true and just.

President Obama, let's get to work. There is much to be done, and the whole world, including the great city on The Thames, is watching and waiting.