The Common Ground for Obama and McCain Supporters
J. Michael Sharman
November 11, 2008
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 The election has been over a week now, and my candidate for president lost. So where do I go from here? What do I do?
Well, I follow the lead of John McCain and Sarah Palin and give honor where honor is due, salute my new president, and move forward into the next stage of serving God and country.
On the night of his loss, John McCain continued to be a great servant-leader when he gave this concession speech to a ballroom full of dispirited supporters:
"Sen. Obama has achieved a great thing for himself and for his country. I applaud him for it, and offer my sincere sympathy that his beloved grandmother did not live to see this day - though our faith assures us she is at rest in the presence of her Creator and so very proud of the good man she helped raise.
"Sen. Obama and I have had and argued our differences, and he has prevailed. No doubt many of those differences remain. These are difficult times for our country, and I pledge to him tonight to do all in my power to help him lead us through the many challenges we face.
"I urge all Americans who supported me to join me in not just congratulating him, but offering our next president our goodwill and earnest effort to find ways to come together, to find the necessary compromises, to bridge our differences and help restore our prosperity, defend our security in a dangerous world, and leave our children and grandchildren a stronger, better country than we inherited.
"Whatever our differences, we are fellow Americans. And please believe me when I say no association has ever meant more to me than that.
"It is natural tonight to feel some disappointment, but tomorrow we must move beyond it and work together to get our country moving again."[1]
 
On the day after the election, Sarah Palin also gave us a great example of patriotic graciousness in defeat: "This is an historic moment. Barack Obama has been elected president … let him be able to kind of savor this moment … and not let the pettiness of maybe internal workings of the campaign erode any of the recognition of this historic moment that we're in. And God bless Barack Obama and his beautiful family and the new administration coming in. It is time that we all pulled together and worked together, and <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />America's going to reach her destiny."[2]
            When I was scanning the radio for post-election coverage, I caught part of a broadcast from Obama's celebration at Grant Park, and the interviewer asked a black man in the crowd how the Obama victory was going to make a difference in his life. He said, "We used to think there was nothing we could do. But now – now we see there's nothing we can't do!"           
            LeBron James was at Grant Park, too, and even though he is  a sports megastar, he also said that the main effect of Obama's victory was that: "It was something that you can tell your kids, you really can become anything now. You don't have to become a basketball player. You can become President of the United States."[3]
Even though there remains a deep and dangerous chasm between the goals stated by Obama and McCain, all McCain supporters can stand in unity on common ground with Obama's supporters, rejoicing that there is no longer one category of possible goals for whites and another for persons of color.
The first stanza of the repeating theme in Martin Luther King's 1963 speech was: "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.'" [4]
The "one day" that Dr. King dreamed about has arrived.
 

[1] Transcript Of John McCain's Concession Speech, NPR.org, November 5, 2008
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96631784

[2] "Palin Reveals 2012 Plans: Kindergarten For Son" CBS News, November 5, 2008,
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2008/11/05/politics/fromtheroad/entry4576840.shtml

[3] "King James in Awe of Obama", Culpeper Star-Exponent, B7, November 6, 2008.

[4] King, Martin Luther, Jr., "I Have a Dream" speech, delivered 28 August 1963 http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm