I had the pleasure of covering the elections for NBC News. I was in the DPS area as we were on the air from 7pm until 3am for our lengthy coverage of the most important historical moments I have ever witnessed. To many viewers I'm aware that it was a landslide victory from early on, but since I was there to do a job, I didn't notice what everyone else probably did much earlier than I.
That we won.
I mostly work in sports, where you are not allowed to cheer for your team (not that I really have one, so this isn't really a problem for me... plus my husband's team doesn't win often enough for me to cheer loudly). But that night, in that tiny little playback area that I was assigned to, we cheered. Because this was so much bigger than sport.
We cheered because a brilliant man, a thoughtful unifier of people, a black American became the 44th President of the United States of America. I don't care that his middle name is Hussein. I cheer because the majority of Americans could see beyond such a thing and STILL elect the best man for this job.
