Outside of the birth of my children or the night my beautiful wife agreed to marry a shlub like me, perhaps the proudest day of my life was three years ago tonight. I will never forget it. I spent a great deal of it here, and the rest with my already longtime compatriots from the Obama campaign. We had fought a long time to get to January 3rd 2008.
I was living in the eastern time zone, so it was late when Obama spoke that night. Perhaps it was silly, but I woke my 9 year old daughter up and made her watch a political speech. I wanted her to witness history.
She was nonplussed. Even my wife wondered why a simple caucus win could mean so much to me. I explained that the was the first time ever that mainstream American voters had ever demonstrated that a person of color could be accepted as President of the US. We tend to forget it now, but back in those days we worried...what subterranean racial discomfort might lurk in the hearts of the average American? We can argue until the cows come home about what we may or may not have gained on 1/3/08, but one tangible thing was achieved that night: No person of color who seeks public office will ever have to be preemptively stopped from trying for fear of the so-called "Wilder-effect."