For the first time in the history of the United States the country has elected a black man to the highest office in the land.

As has been stated, this moment is a historic one; a shining example of what can be accomplished when a nation chooses to cast aside the bonds of racism and embrace change.

Now comes the time to drop our political differences and work together to fix the numerous problems facing our nation. Whether Democrat, Republican, or independent, these are problems we share and continuous partisan politics will do nothing to right the direction of the United States.

President-elect Barack Obama will become the 44th leader of this country and will enter the White House encouraged by the hopes and dreams of so many.

President-elect Obama faces a myriad of challenges: an economy in trouble, two wars involving Americans overseas, the rising cost of healthcare, energy concerns…more than was faced by President Franklin D. Roosevelt when he first took office in the shadows of a Great Depression.

“For even as we celebrate tonight, we know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime – two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century,” said President Obama in his victory speech on Tuesday night. “Even as we stand here tonight, we know there are brave Americans waking up in the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan to risk their lives for us. There are mothers and fathers who will lie awake after their children fall asleep and wonder how they’ll make the mortgage, or pay their doctor’s bills, or save enough for college. There is new energy to harness and new jobs to be created; new schools to build and threats to meet and alliances to repair.”

President-elect Obama asked the country for unity.

“Let us resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long,” he said. “Let us remember that it was a man from this state who first carried the banner of the Republican Party to the White House – a party founded on the values of self-reliance, individual liberty, and national unity.”

We hope that President-elect Obama will live up to these ideals. We hope he is a president who unites, and not divides. We hope he casts aside the shackles of partisan politics in Washington D.C.

History will not remember President-elect Obama for the good he did for his party, but for the good he did his Republic.