As we all recover from the remarkable events of the past hours, days, and weeks, and begin to look forward at what a President Barack Hussein Obama might mean for the United States and the world, I find the appropriate tone elusive.  My faith in Obama as a leader is buoyed by the following: amidst the pervasive bloviating about the historical nature of this election, with the pundits and commentators falling all over themselves to proclaim a post-racial America, to muse about the Black Camelot, to argue that the election of someone they as recently as yesterday proclaimed a “socialist” means that this is in-fact a “center-right nation,” the President-elect himself spoke of his election in terms at once commensurate to the moment and clear-eyed about what awaits.

When Obama took the stage last night, I was struck immediately by just how somber he looked.  He seemed both humbled by the moment and completely cognizant of the utter mess he’s set to inherit.  In the most soaring section of his speech, he cast the history of the past century through the eyes of Ann Nixon Cooper, born in Georgia in 1902 to a former slave.  He recounted the greatest American achievements of the last 100 years — women’s suffrage, the New Deal, World War II, the Black Freedom Movement, the moon landing, the fall of the Iron Curtain — interspersing, in the rhythm of the black church, the phrase “yes, we can” to connote that when Americans have faced existential challenges, the majority of them have repeatedly congealed around a shared, fundamental belief in the nation.  He then pivoted to the future, imagining his daughters looking back upon the 21st century, pitching this moment as the one where we chose to give them a history about which they could be proud.  This segment effectively situated the election in our national story and comfortably acknowledged its implications for the history of racism in this country, without letting the idea overwhelm the whole.  It was an “omni-American” moment, drawing upon the pain and richness in our national experience to present an integrative vision of history.

Yet, his sober body language cut somehow against this profound statement of hope, and did so in a way that actually gave me more confidence in his ability to become the greatest president in more than a generation.  This is a politician who is keenly self-aware, who said in May 2007, while reflecting upon his trouble in the earliest debates, “there’s a certain ambivalence in my character that I like about myself. It’s part of what makes me a good writer, you know? It’s not necessarily useful in a presidential campaign.”  In an 180-degree turn from the current occupant of the White House, here is a man who struggles with ideas, who challenges himself to synthesize, who speaks to Americans as adults who can be trusted to see more than two diametrically opposed sides to an issue.  This is the temperament that allowed Obama to surge against the backdrop of an economic crisis, to soar above Rovian politics; it’s the persona that injected humility into his presentation last night, that led him to address in sympathetic terms those who disagree with him; and it’s the proper tone to lead the nation as it begins to face this next wave of existential challenges.

This man can’t solve all of our problems, doesn’t portend the end of race, and is bound by difficult choices.  But I can think of no better leader for this moment.

Some additional, random thoughts:

• Delano. S. Fitzgerald. Baines. Herbert Walker. Hussein.
• For the first time in my life, we have a President who may be able to convince some people that government is not the biggest problem in their lives.
• It will be fascinating to watch the Republican Party as it struggles to pick up the pieces and to find a voice.  It will be at war with itself.
• Obama will be the first president my and many of your kids will remember throughout their lives.
• It’s almost as remarkable for a former community organizer to win this office as it is an African-American.
• The passage of Proposition 8 in California should lessen the joy progressives take forward from yesterday.