Barack Obama was elected as the 44th president of the United States of America last night. He is also our first president of African-American descent.

I don’t know that I can properly express the optimism and happiness I feel that my fellow Americans still have faith in our government, and still have hope that our ship can be righted and our problems at home and abroad addressed in a rational and responsible manner.

Until I can more properly express some of those thoughts, I wanted to leave you, my constant readers, with a couple of videos from Mr. Obama. The first is the “Yes We Can” video that made it’s rounds back in early ’08, urging voters to get out and vote at the primary and caucus level. But, it’s message is every bit as topical now as it was then. The chants from the crowd at his victory speech last night went “Yes We Did”, but that’s really not true. One step has been made, but there is SO much more to do. Mr. Obama never said those words himself, and I believe the reason is that he agrees – there’s a lot more to do.

The next set of videos are his acceptance speech from last night. The speech had to be broken up into 3 parts, but it’s really not that long (a little over 20 minutes all totaled). If you haven’t heard it yet, I highly recommend giving them a listen, regardless of your political leaning or party affiliation. As my friend Bill at Trusty Plinko Stick said so well, “I forgot what it’s like to have a president who’s a true orator. That man can *speak*.” Well said, and so very true. His acceptance speech is proof positive of that.

Yes We Can:

Victory Speech Part 1:

Victory Speech Part 2:

Victory Speech Part 3: