Election night 2008

There are lots of reasons why I'll always remember election night 2008 -- not the least of which is that "my" candidate won. But it won't be because I voted by absentee ballot because I was out of the country. I cast my vote for Bill Clinton ahead of time in 1996 in order to spend November and December in Russia. This time I applied for an absentee ballot, which I received and completed while I was in Jerusalem. Nor will it be for the fun I had staying up all night waiting for results with the group you see at the left. It won't even be because of all the emotions I felt at the incredible result -- relief, hope, joy.

Instead, I hope it will be because I intend to fulfill a realization I made that night. Obama's victory for me did not signal the successful end of a campaign. For me it was the beginning -- the beginning of my holding my president-elect to his promises, of my demanding accountability from Obama for how he governs our country. I made a choice, I placed my trust in him, based on him putting himself forward as an ethical, intelligent, responsible leader. His job is to live up to his pledges; mine is to hold him to it. I intend to be every bit as critical of him as I was of his GOP predecessor. Now the work begins.