Game. Set. Match. Election. History! (or, The cynics were as wrong as a Fox News pundit.)

Several years ago I worked at a place where the management was either incompetent, uncaring, unsupported or untrained by their managers. For the record, I think the latter was mostly the problem: upper management didn't care and left the front line managers to fend for themselves.

Whatever the reasons, it was a good place to work but it needed structure and consistency. We were generating a lot of income for the parent Corporation but getting little back in pay. Every so often a high level exec would stroll through, tell us what a great job we were doing, how much money we were generating, but never promise us any additional opportunities.

In short, the place needed a union. It was obvious. So when a union did come around for the card check ritual, I was cynical. I thought people were stupid, they were often cowardly and they regularly voted against their own interests. There was no way my co-workers would see the logic of a union, the vote was going to fail and all of us who voted yes were going to be fired afterwards.

I was as wrong as a Fox News pundit. The union won in a landslide. Lesson learned! Sometimes the people aren't stupid, sometimes the majority is right. All those quotes about the unwashed masses being dumb are exposed for what they are: knee-jerk snobbery.

Yesterday, Obama won a solid victory and cynicism lost again!

I visited Amsterdam in 2005, about a year after George W(ar criminal) Bush got re-elected. Here was a man who was a wealthy oil baron, whose daddy was president just a few years ago, a man who lied the USA into a war with Iraq. He wasn't a good example of America. He was a good example of the knuckleheads that are often found in royal families. I was so embarrassed.

No longer. Now I can visit Europe (assuming I could afford the weak U.S. dollar vs. Euro exchange!) and hold my head high again. Last night, not only did the smarter guy, the best guy, the right guy, win, but look how far our society has come. Around 150 years ago, Barack Obama would have been a slave, but now he's our deserving leader.

A word about those who supported McCain: I don't mean to imply that by not voting for Obama they are racists or cowards or anything negative. I can't imagine a worse candidate for right now than McCain, but I'm sure those people had their reasons, and as long as they were based on reason, I don't fault you.

What I am excited about, and what all Americans should be excited about as well, is that our country provided Obama the opportunity. That's what it's all about: equal opportunity.

I'm also hoping this election provides irrefutable evidence to my darker-toned fellow humans that millions of us paler folk are willing to judge people by their words and actions, and not prejudge based on skin color. Maybe that fact will spell the end of some cynicism, too.

For now, the first hurdle is passed. Obama won. Obama won! My country rocks!

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Larry Nocella is the author of the novel Where Did This Come From? available on Amazon. For more info, visit his website at http://www.larrynocella.com/.