I've had a number of people ask what I thought about the victory of Barack Hussein Obama over John McCain. Not that I'm special -- people all over the country are asking each other what they think it all means.

While I got caught up in the moment (I'm a sucker for emotional manipulation, which is one reason I avoid most movies), I kept a distance from the frenzy of excitement that filled the Internet and airwaves last night and today.

Yes, the images of Grant Park in Chicago streamed around the world might themselves do more to regain our international standing as a beacon of hope, of a shining example of a county that prizes and makes possible individual accomplishment regardless of color or creed. Yes, the emotional content of Obama's blackness is in itself meaningful (although I understand why, it irks me that his designation always has to focus on his black side, and I'm looking forward to a day when it is no more noteworthy than his whiteness).

But to me, the real meaning of Obama's election is that it is a chance, not the thing itself. He said it best himself in his acceptance speech, first in a call to action that included everyone:

Even as we celebrate tonight, we know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime -- two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century.

… Above all, I will ask you to join in the work of remaking this nation, the only way it's been done in America for 221 years -- block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand.

Then, what I believe to be the key statement:

This victory alone is not the change we seek. It is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were. It can't happen without you, without a new spirit of service, a new spirit of sacrifice.

There, he said it -- sacrifice. Without injecting partisanship, one thing that I never understood during President George W. Bush's tenure was his approach to the war in Iraq. By God, if we're in a war, let's sacrifice. He told us to shop.

I'm willing to sacrifice. I'll drive less. I'll compromise some of my ideas to work with well-meaning people who have other ideas. I'll pay a little more in taxes, if I'm seeing results.

Obama's victory can be a moment in time that proves nothing more than yet another spectacle, a political Super Bowl, or it can be a pivot point. Republicans have good ideas. Democrats have good ideas. Let's fight it out, honestly and transparently, with the behind-door lobbying kept to a minimum, and let's speak bluntly about the challenges we face and the options we have.

We've been blessed with a bountiful planet, and as U.S. citizens, a nation of plenty and of plentiful opportunity. We have been charged by God to be good stewards.

What struck me and hopefully everyone else watching and talking and listening last night and this morning is the opportunity to raise our level of stewardship, and not only because of Obama. McCain gave a gracious and stirring concession speech, and Bush's remarks this morning displayed a humbleness and subservience to the needs of the country. Taken together, three of the most important U.S. political figures spent last night and this morning delivering a charge to the nation -- let's take up the challenge together.

I call myself a naïve cynic. In that spirit, I will permit myself the audacity to hope this is possible.

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Sito Negron is editor of Newspaper Tree.