A Visitor's View from Greenwich Village

So Barack closed the deal and did so in convincing fashion. Not only did he win, as we now know, it was a landslide. It seems that the politics of fear and division did not work this time. The Rove style scare game just didn't have enough traction. And the Palin gambit served only as a momentary lift once the voters discerned that she represented little more than an attractive package disguising a nearly empty bag.

As we stood in Greenwich Village the other night, all the rhetoric about real Americans vs. the urban elites seemed more surreal than ridiculous. On a beautiful autumn evening, the corner of Sixth Avenue and Bleecker Street was alive, well, and calmly going about its business, real Americans beginning the first weekend after electing the next president. Surely this sophisticated neighborhood known for tolerance and open mindedness, in a most sophisticated city, would be the sort of not so real America that the McCain campaign tried to separate from its supporters. But a rural resident with conservative values would probably be more amused than threatened on this street corner on this night.

So we go on. The red states are a bit fewer and bluer and President-Elect Obama is about to inherit the daunting task of turning around the economy and fulfilling his promise of uniting the red and blue into something I would describe as a beautiful purple. Close up, Greenwich Village will still be blue and rural Georgia will still be red. But as we pull back and attempt to soar high and see with eagles' eyes, the view below must start to blend into a united hue where we enrich each other under the leadership of the man whose white mother from Kansas and black father from Kenya gave us the gift of hope and promise.