On the ground

There doesn’t seem much left to say at this point. On Tuesday, we all watched history unfold before our eyes as Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States (although he had to be re-sworn in today, due to Chief Justice Roberts’ flub).

Rather than repeating other people’s stuff, I wanted to share a few thoughts from the youngest member of the Delaware County Democratic Committee, who only registered to vote in November 2007, who voted for the first time on February 5, 2008 and who cast her first vote for president in November 2008.

Regina Baker writes:

I don’t know what it was — the electrical excitement in the room, the fact that I was witnessing something I had helped to bring about by voting, the fact the everyone around me was expressing such raw emotion over this — but it just seemed magical in a strange way. Call me childish, but being in that room with all of my fellow students, jumping and screaming and cheering for Obama, made it feel like I was at DC, at the Inauguration, being a part of it all too.

In the span of two hours, I watched history being made. Martin Luther King Jr. must have been smiling down at us. It was fitting that the swearing in of our first African-American president was the day after we remembered MLK’s legacy.

And the whole time I was thinking to myself: I voted and helped bring him to this day. And now, Obama will help us get back on our feet as a nation and move forward.

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I’m looking forward to tomorrow.

[Note: Musical accompaniment recorded by Regina in her dorm room at Ithaca College]