Ting Ting for president

I avoid talking about politics on this blog -- after all, if I want to argue about the candidates or the issues I can just have a conversation with members of my family. But many of you know I'm a journalist, and I happen to work for the newspaper in President-elect Obama's home town. I spent Tuesday night (and the early hours of Wednesday) helping to cover the big story. But when I was driving home to my slumbering household, the true significance of what had happened Tuesday began to sink in: Because of this election, my daughter will never know a world where only white men serve as president.

Ting Ting was sound asleep, oblivious to the significance of this day. But my heart filed with pride as I thought of how much this election had changed the world for my Asian daughter. Someday she'll read in her history books about how we used to think that people wouldn't vote for a black (or Asian or Latino) person or that a woman wasn't a viable presidential candidate, and she'll shake her head at how ridiculous we were. It took us way too long to reach this point, but I'm so glad we're finally here, for my daughter's sake as well as my own.

Of course, we still have that pesky problem of the Constitution requiring the president to be a "natural born citizen" of the U.S. . . .