What a wonderful collection of generally thoughtful — and respectful — commentary.

There’s too much content for me to respond adequately to each comment, so, once again, THANKS!

Any one, white, black, brown, yellow or polka dot has got one hell of a job ahead of him as President of the USA at this juncture. The whole world is watching. I would be scared if I was Obama and so would my family and friends.

“I’m absolutely terrified in the face of Tyranny. Tyranny of the Majority, that is; the very thing that the founding fathers were trying to avoid with a complex system of checks, balances, and separation of power that have been made all but moot this season.”

No… President Bush made all those points moot when abused his powers to take us to a war based on his administration’s lies. Where were all of these so called checks and balances then? The reason the Democrats
have a majority right now is because Republican’s didn’t adhere to your so called checks and balances. They
allowed Bush to break law after law and bend the constitution without any threat of punishment. Bush pardoned
Libby who was convicted by a jury. He signed the Patriot Act. If anyone ever promoted ‘tyranny’ in America
it was George Bush.

I do believe you are afraid. And it is that exact fear and ignorance that are the cause of hate, discrimination, persecution in the world.

With this election the true colors of our neighbors are coming out and I don’t like what I am seeing in most cases.

Well, I certainly don’t worship Obama and I don’t assume that reservations are raced based.

I’ve known Jim for about 20 years, an acquaintance, not a friend. Jim worked at the same place I did, in a different department, though we’ve worked together several times over the years on the same refueling team. I’ll grant that I could be wrong, but based on what I know of him, I don’t think so. I didn’t ask because I was in a social situation where I was in a political minority and it was the day before the election. There might have been another Obama supporter there, but I doubt it.

I am just so sick and tired of all of the attacks that are based on Obama being different. The constant barrage of Reverend Wright ads just before the election was sickening.

A friend of over 40 years is particularly disappointing. We both attended the same all-white high school on the edge of Houston. During this campaign, she has been forwarding all of the innuendos and trash e-mails, despite being the legal guardian of two mixed race grandchildren.

I live in a southern state county where Obama got 27% of the vote. In high school, my oldest daughter was ostracized when she dared to befriend a mixed-race child.

I voted against George Bush because I feared that his politics and personal capabilities would be bad for the country, even though I expected to benefit in my career and personally. I was able to retire at age 55 in 2007 because of how fast my savings had ballooned, yet two years later, some of my friends who were in very similar situations financially now don’t know when they can retire.

I think under a Barack Obama administration, I may have to go back to work, even though I don’t want to. However, I do believe that Obama will be a good president that will benefit America.

Change scares me. Obama doesn’t. I didn’t want him to run this time because I really didn’t think he could make it this time.

And i’m not so much afraid as i am flat out SICK of people assuming that any reservations people feel for Obama are race-based. Just because you worship the man as a God does not make him so. There are other flaws in his character, policies, and the nature of his plans that make him worrisome, and i daresay that YOU are the biased one for failing to recognize this. Maybe you’re not racist, but if you didn’t have a preconceived notion about the person in the story above, I doubt you would have assumed that their hesitation was caused by Obama’s race.
Did it occur to you, ever, in your judging of this person’s character, to question his/her motives? OR was it simply more suiting to assume that he/she is a racist? Had you asked him/her why he/she were afraid of Obama and had he/she hesitated or failed to come up with a satisfactory response, maybe you would be justified in assuming racism, but as far as i can tell, you did not, and therefore ARE not.

Might i also add, that you’ve given no substantial reasons NOT to be afraid of Obama, just rehashed old talking points. This would be better suited as poetry or prose, but there is no substantive political merit here.