When I started writing this book in the Spring of 2005, Barack Obama was barely on my political radar.  I had been impressed by his Democratic Convention speech in 2004, and there was no doubt that he had a bright political future, but that future seemed eight to twelve years away.  When I heard that he was running for president in 2008, I thought it was a trial run, not unlike John F. Kennedy in 1956–getting his feet wet, getting his name into the arena, but not to be taken too seriously yet.
          The Democratic nomination for president in 2008 was Hillary Clinton's to lose.  The Clintons were Democratic Party royalty.  Despite large negative numbers from conservatives, there seemed to be no one else on the Democratic side with the organization in place, the ability to fundraise, and the charisma and experience that Hillary and her husband, former president Bill Clinton, had.
          The Iowa Caucus, held January 3rd, 2008, changed all of that.  Hillary Clinton found herself, out-organized, out-managed, and out-hustled by an inspired group of Obama supporters, and suddenly, the game was on.
          By the time this book hits the shelves (or cyber-shelves), there will already be at least a half-dozen books by well-known authors and journalists recounting in minute detail the amazing and historic Campaign of 2008, in which the people of the United States of America elected the first (half) African-American as President.  My goal in these last few pages is simply to find out, as a perfect bookend to the book, why this is such a happy event for me, and such an unhappy one for most evangelical Christians.
          First of all, I know that the tragic and catastrophic events of the last four-to-eight years have left even many evangelicals scratching their heads and wondering if gay marriage is really a strong enough issue for them to endure four more years of this mess.  The very people in which the Christian right invested so much of their support have run our country into the ground.  For those Christians who have consistently made abortion the litmus test for any candidate to elective office, the last eight years have proven that being pro-life means much more than this single issue.  We, as in "we the people," who put into power a regime that killed hundreds of thousands of people in a war that they lied to the country to fight, "we the people," who voted twice for a Christian president who went against sixty years of international law to allow torture of prisoners of war, "we the people," who voted not once, but twice, for an administration that has almost irreparably weakened our country both domestically and in the eyes of the rest of the world, "we" have gotten exactly what we deserved for the last eight years.  And yet, here in my home state of California, with the economy falling apart, foreclosures rising beyond the unthinkable level, stores closing and people being thrown out of work, evangelical Christians have succeeded in leading the way once again in trying to deny gays the legal right to marry. This narrow-minded, fear-based thinking is what gave us the presidency of George W. Bush, and his re-election in 2004 is what drove me to write this book.
          On Election Night, John McCain made the most elegant, humble concession speech I have ever heard.  When he urged his supporters to unite behind the new President-elect, they booed. This represented a fitting picture of the two Americas that we currently live in.
          I listen, watch, and read more right-wing media than is healthy for anyone, especially for one whose views are so diametrically opposed. I have long felt that it was a necessary function of being completely well informed, and that I needed to walk the talk of this book.  To absorb the information masquerading as fact that is spewed each and every day by these media is to truly place oneself in an alternate universe.  In this world, Barack Obama is an anti-American, terrorist, Muslim, socialist, whose election to president will mark the beginning of the United States of Socialist Amerika.  This ugliness, particularly as it manifested itself in late campaign rallies of both Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin and John McCain, bordered on the truly dangerous, as it takes only one hyped up wing-nut with a rifle to put deed to words.
          Even more disconcerting was the headline in a "Faith2Action" commentary by Janet Porter on WorldNetDaily.com read, "You Cannot be a Christian and Vote for Obama." I will just quote the first sentence: "To all those who name the name of Christ who plan to willfully disobey Him by voting for Obama, take warning. Not only is our nation in grave danger, according to the Word of God, so are you." (Italics in the original.)  Dr. James Dobson churlishly and childishly prayed for rain to come down on Barack Obama's outdoor acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention in his home state of Colorado, only to have the not-amused Man Upstairs deliver Hurricane Ike on the day of the opening of the Republican Convention.  Dobson, who is second in prescient prophecy only to the Reverend Pat Robertson, wrote a sixteen-page "Letter from 2012 in Obama's America" that is a summation of every real or perceived fear that white evangelical America could possibly imagine short of Armageddon.
          I honestly don't know where these Christians have been the last eight years.  Using any metaphor you like, how far in the sand does one's head need to be buried, how far under the rug does one need to sweep the disaster that has befallen this country? People all over the world are now rejoicing! Our friends, allies, neutrals, and yes, some enemies.  All these people, who cannot be dismissed, who are our neighbors in an ever-shrinking world, understand that something that has been treasured for so long and been most recently lost–that "something" being the Good that America stands for, the decency of our values and the greatness of our Constitution–has a chance to be renewed now that the long, dark shadow of arrogance and hubris and biggest-bully-on-the-block behavior has been finally shown the door.  When the American people, led by the evangelical Christian right, voted a second time for George W. Bush in 2004, the people of the rest of the world began to stop delineating between the American government and the American people. You are they, was the logic.
          Now, if only for a moment, our nation has reason to hold its collective head high.  For there indeed is hope of a better relationship with the rest of the world, a chance to truly lead by example.  Much of the world welcomes our leadership, as long as it is within the bounds of our Constitution and International Law.  It seems funny to even have to write that, but after the last eight years, it sadly must be said.  We are the leaders of the Free World, as long as we do unto others as we would have them do to us.  We are the "bastion of freedom," as long as we don't expect a different set of rules for us than for the rest of the world.  We can be again a nation that other nations want to model themselves after, but for the right reasons, reasons of true freedom, liberty, and democracy, not because we allow torture and create pre-emptive wars, and change international law as we deem fit.
          Will President Barack Obama be perfect? Of course not! He has said as much already; he has said he will fail, a refreshing bit of humility not once broached in the last eight years.  It will take quite awhile to turn this Titanic around.  As a Christian, as a follower of Jesus Christ, I have hope that the secular principles that embody the definition of the word "liberal," along with the spiritual principles embody the words and deeds of Jesus, will come together for the betterment of not only the United States of America, but for the whole world.  I love my country, and tonight I will sleep better than I have in a long time.