HISTORIC

It is with the utmost sincerity and genuine goodwill that I wish to congratulate Barack Obama and the millions who supported him on your historic win this evening.

My hope is that this will lift your spirits from the traumatic eight years they have endured, and restore to you the conviction that this is, and was, and always will be your country as well as ours. I hope that, over time, you may come to see in this great victory tonight perhaps a sense that the cards are not and were not hopelessly stacked against you, and that tonight you simply did what we conservatives did on this same evening four and eight years ago – make a better case to the American people. And you did it by a far greater margin than we did on either of those occasions.

To our liberal and Democratic opponents: this night is yours. Indeed, the next four years are yours. Starting soon I will begin again to argue as best I can against many of the policies and philosophies that President-Elect Obama represents. I hope you will keep in mind that I do so not out of personal animosity towards him or his supporters, but only towards the ideals he espouses, and that only because in my studies of history and human nature I have found many of them to be unsound.

When he is inaugurated, President Obama will be my president. He cannot be otherwise. I will disagree with him at just about every turn, likely, and that is my right and duty as an American. However, in an emergency he will have my unqualified support, and I will always wish him wisdom and hope that he may do what is best for this great country of ours. I do not wish – I do not ever wish – to see my country suffer so that I may gain political leverage. If at this same time four years from now, President Obama has acted in such a way to make us more prosperous, more safe and more free, it will be my greatest pleasure to admit I was wrong about the man. I look forward to that day. I hope to see it come to pass.

Regardless of all of that, we have together achieved something noble and magnificent tonight. We have, after a long and hazardous journey, taken the final step in erasing the one real stain on our nation’s history. That war is not over, but it is won. And we may all take a great deal of pride in that.

This much, from the bottom of my heart, for you and your side.

As for our side… We have tried, and failed. Tomorrow we will try again. And then we will begin, with a confident and joyous heart, to examine how we have failed the American people in regard to making clear the moral and philosophical underpinnings of our philosophy. For anyone that fully understands these philosophies, presented calmly and with wit and humility, will come to our side and never leave.

So again, to Senator Obama, Senator Biden, and all their families and supporters — please accept my deepest congratulations on a spectacular victory.