This was not the result we wanted or expected, obviously, but we offer our sincere congratulations to President-Elect Obama and his supporters.

David Axelrod, Howard Dean, Donna Brazile, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid all need to be congratulated as well –  they had a plan since 2004 they worked to perfection. Whether we agree with their methods or not, they were wildly successful.

There’s a fork in the road here that all those of us who wanted McCain to win can take: you can either follow a negative path, and bitterly curse last night’s results, or you can choose to accept this result and put your energy into what you can do going forward to make sure your voice will be heard in the new administration, and your concerns for this nation to be raised.

Obama is the President-Elect and deserves the opportunity to show us how he will lead — he could very well surprise us and prove our concerns about him to be unfounded. We don’t know yet. But, last night he won the election, and that affords him a chance to win our support. He deserves that chance to explain what “change” means in terms of where he plans to take this country, and how he intends to get us there.

Last night closed the chapter on the election, and today began the chapter on his presidency. We’re going to watch his moves closely — with an open mind — to see how willing and able Obama is to work with moderate Democrats and Republicans who did not support him in the primaries or general election, but who must now accept last night’s results.

As John McCain said in his concession speech, we should all do our best to work with Obama in the days ahead, with the assumption he will rise to this momentous occasion and be the president of ALL Americans, and not just the ones who voted for him.

Last night was a seismic generational shift of epic proporations that we didn’t see coming. Now, it’s time to figure out what that really means, and where all of us go from here.

After a VERY late night, that’s something we can’t do at this particular moment, but will begin in earnest later today.

For the moment, we once again congratulate President-Elect Obama on his extraordinary and historic win and wish him great success in his transition — because while we rooted against him with all our heart during this race, since he’s won, NO ONE should be hoping for any failure on his part. There is too much at stake for him to fail, and so we hope his supporters are right about him and that he will bring great things to this nation.

Because America deserves it. We hope Obama delivers.