Barack Obama offered America an antidote to the "wedge-issue" politics of division and exclusion that have plagued the nation for more than a decade: Hope.
On Election Day millions of voters embraced that message, shaking off years of lethargy and heading to the polls in near-record numbers. The message was loud and clear -- this is our country, too, and we're not sitting on the sidelines anymore.
The number of African American voters rose from 11 percent to 13 percent of the electorate, and 95 percent of them voted for Obama.
The number of voters age 18 to 32, which had risen from 50 to more than 200 percent in every state in which a primary was held, rose on a day when overall turnover, according to some experts, topped 64 percent. That would top even the 63.8 percent turnout in 1960, the year John F. Kennedy was elected.
Many of those voters -- inspired by Obama -- were voting for the first time. In Detroit Free Press exit polling, 11 percent of Michigan voters interviewed Tuesday said they were first-time voters. Of them, 82 percent said they voted for the president-elect.
CBS analysts said four main groups that have never before been keys to a winning coalition went big for Obama: African Americans; single women 18-39; Hispanic voters; and independents. Obama won more than 60 percent in each category.
It is too early to dig the final grave for the exclusionary wedge tactics used so effectively for so long. People who had been demonized because they didn't look, think or believe as others did will still be targeted. The smears of groups like the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth will continue. But the heat is gone.
Obama was himself the target of one of the most extensive smear campaigns in memory. He was called everything from a terrorist to a Muslim to, gasp, a liberal. But as time went on and Obama talked instead about hope, inspiration and the future, the attacks simply didn't matter.
For many young people and others too long on the sidelines, Tuesday's outcome was a celebration. They had voted and their voices made a difference. That was a huge step for them and a nation that must now unite behind common goals, starting with propping up the shattered economy.
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There was no excuse Tuesday for Traverse City election workers demanding -- in direct contradiction of the law -- that voters produce a photo ID before voting. At the site of two Garfield Township precincts, there were signs telling people they had to have an ID to vote.
Just last month the courts upheld a Michigan law that said those without a photo ID could vote after signing an affidavit attesting to their identity.
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