Just so no one will be confused where I stand.

The true test of the American ideal is whether we’re able to recognize our failings and then rise together to meet the challenges of our time. Whether we allow ourselves to be shaped by events and history, or whether we act to shape them. Whether chance of birth or circumstance decides life’s big winners and losers, or whether we build a community where, at the very least, everyone has a chance to work hard, get ahead, and reach their dreams.

BARACK OBAMA, speech, Jun. 4, 2005

While it is still early McCain's path to victory is looking thinner by the minute. So forgive me if I start to get contemplative on what lays ahead. It's an old military adage that while winning the battle is hard, winning the peace is even harder. A nearly wrecked economy, a military spread desperately thin fighting two wars, a drug-like addiction to foreign oil, an education system that after decades still falls embarrassingly short of preparing children for the 21st century, and finally and perhaps worst of all an American people that has been polarized and fractured to the point that some people openly question who is "pro-American" and "anti-American".

If Obama does end up winning the election the battle will be far from over. Expectations of a massive progressive agenda will have to be balanced with economic and political realities. Bridges will have to built with those on the other side who are willing to work together in good faith. Along with exposing and isolating those out to sabotage efforts to help the country from either side whether it be spiteful Republicans out for revenge or rogue Democrats out to score points for their own purposes.

A President Obama will still need our support even more then as he tries to knit a wounded country back together and sets it back on a road toward the principles it was founded on instead of a government that just craters to those with access to power and wealth. It will not be easy, success will not come overnight, and some might become impatient with pet issues that are not addressed as quickly or as intensively as they want. This is where we have to act with the same energy and motivation that carried Senator Obama through close to two years of hell to the White House. In other words instead of acting like spoiled children we will finally have to act like the Americans we claim to be. Lets hope we are up to this battle because it will be far harder than just getting Obama elected.