American voters have emphatically slammed the door on eight long years of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney’s divisive politics and disastrous policies. Following a predictable and ho-hum closing stretch of the campaign, Barack Obama was overwhelmingly elected president. The most important and most textured race for the presidency in my lifetime, in most Americans’ lifetimes, deserved a more dramatic finish.

The historical significance of electing our first African-American president cannot be lost on me, as I remember what it was like growing up in the segregated South. To say that I never thought I would see an African-American president in my lifetime is to understate what Mr Obama’s achievement says about America.