History has been made . . .

on November 04, 2008 at 11:30 PM, updated November 04, 2008 at 11:44 PM

It was going to be seen as a historic election no matter what. The Democratic primary contest meant the party's presidential candidate would be an African-American or a woman. The Republican ticket meant the vice president could be a woman. These firsts, along with the daunting range of tough issues arrayed against the incoming president, made this long election season both more exhilarating and more anxiety-producing than any in years.

The critical question haunting voters was this: Who can be trusted with an uncertain future? Who can be trusted at a time when American prestige is sullied and American economic might is damaged?

That voters decided it was the African-American candidate, Barack Obama, they most trusted does not mean the racial issues that have shadowed American history have been vanquished, though it means they have receded. It doesn't mean that walls of class and opportunity have fallen, though it suggests they have been dented.

What it does mean, quite simply, is that Americans found Obama the better candidate. They found him the best man for the nation's 3 a.m. of the soul as well as the 3 a.m. phone call to the president's office.

It means that the millions of Americans who voted for Obama -- and even many who did not -- no longer regard race and color as an issue. What mattered was the calculation that individuals made in their hearts and minds about their welfare and safety and about who could best serve them.

There should be no self-congratulation about the fact that Obama will be in the White House or about the fact that young people, like the president-elect's two daughters, are coming of age at a time when the "People's House," as Andrew Jackson called it, really might come to be seen as such. In fact, it's astonishing that for so long so many people have been blind to what seems so self-evident: that everyone should be judged, to paraphrase Martin Luther King Jr., by the content of his character.

In many ways, Obama is untested and untried, but his character -- as evidenced by the steadiness and strategic discipline of his campaign -- seems reassuringly solid.

Oliver Wendell Holmes said of Franklin Delano Roosevelt that he had a second-class intellect but a first-class temperament. Obama seems abundantly gifted in both, which is why he has won. He inspires the hope that confidence in him is well-placed. What is history-making about this election is that at a time when Americans are more worried about their future than they have been in years, Obama's character was, in the end, what really mattered.