The first comment I received from someone not on my television screen regarding the election of Barack Obama as the next president of the United States came via email early the day after the election. It asked simply, “Now what?” Those two words coalesced the questions facing not only our new president, but also the people of our nation, regardless of ideology or political affiliation.

Now we wait, I replied, and guard the house, and protect the chickens, and peer deep into the night and listen.

It occurred to me that my reply may sound skeptical, indeed fearful, of Mr. Obama. Quite the contrary. I meant to point out folks should react cautiously, but not anxiously.

Those who did not vote for him have no need to grab their rifles, run out into their yards with hair aflame, and fire blindly at imagined intruders. Those who voted for the current Mr. Bush the first time must remember their outrage when supporters of Al Gore derided the nation’s new leader before he could prove himself one way or the other.

Yes, there was much anger and even considerable suspicion regarding the election, bad feelings that remain to this day. But it’s different this time. The outcome is clear. No chads hanging the election in the balance. Back then, in 2000, Mr. Gore received half a million more votes than Mr. Bush. This week, Mr. Obama outpolled Mr. McCain by more than seven million votes. Even though he did not win, Mr. McCain received more votes than Messrs. Bush and Gore and even Ronald Reagan in either of his landslide elections.

Mr. Obama will become president of a nation divided strongly along many lines. Nearly 56 million of his fellow citizens preferred another candidate, another set of ideas, another plan for change. He will learn on the job, as did every other president before him, the best way to lead his nation in the direction he believes best. In the process, he will lose many of his followers, people who want to take their leader to places he does not, or cannot, go. He will find, as did every other president before him, that the Oval Office is a lonely and confining place.

That’s why we the people need to cut him some slack and resist the temptation to nitpick, to continue the mean-spiritedness that has infected our nation and has made a sport out of making sport of someone we don’t particularly like. The level of political intolerance and nasty rhetoric seems to have increased considerably during the last couple of years. Were the commentators and comedians to blame or did the campaigns set the tone that others mimicked? It doesn’t matter today. The election is over and both candidates, in their respective concession and acceptance speeches, achieved the level of eloquence we should see during a campaign, not just at the end.

Mr. McCain began his speech by asking the crowd to stop booing at the name of Barack Obama. And then he urged his supporters to join him in congratulating the next president and in offering Mr. Obama “our good will and earnest effort to find ways to come together to find the necessary compromise to bridge our differences and help restore our prosperity, defend our security in a dangerous world, and leave our children and grandchildren a stronger, better country than we inherited. Whatever our differences,” he continued, “we are fellow Americans.”

It is natural, he said, to feel disappointment. “But tomorrow, we must move beyond it and work together to get our country moving again.”

Mr. Obama echoed in his acceptance speech that call for national unity. He told the world that the citizens of our nation “have never been a collection of individuals or a collection of red states and blue states. We are, and always will be, the United States of America.”

And then, on a night filled with history, he called forward the memory of Abraham Lincoln, a Republican from Illinois, who was the first to carry his party’s banner to the White House. “As Lincoln said to a nation more divided than ours,” he said, “we are not enemies, but friends. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices. I need your help. And I will be your president, too.”

That statement answers the second email I received the morning after the election, sent by a person who wrote, “He will never be MY president.” Our political system, the envy of the world, allows us to embrace fully the victor while guarding the house and peering deep into the night and listening. Then, if we find ourselves at odds with what comes to our front door, we can take up our ballot, not our rifle, and change our leadership again.

When historians look back on the 2008 U.S. presidential election, they may determine race and trust were the silent and deciding factors in the surprise election of John McCain.  Those same historians may also conclude Barack Obama played a significant role in his own defeat by making race an issue and by eroding the trust of voters by refusing to place his faith in them.

Let’s begin the race issue with a disclaimer.  I looked hard at the Obama candidacy early on, because I didn’t find much in common politically with the choices at the time.  Except for Obama.  We’re both from Illinois.  We’re both racially mixed.  Neither of us conducted our youthful days in conventional ways, at least not conventional to people of earlier generations.

But, before I went Full Barry, I wanted to hear him repudiate those who could not resist the easy temptation to call him the black candidate.  I waited for him to say his father was a black man from Kenya and his mother was a white woman from Kansas, which made him the new, blended face of our nation.  I wanted to hear him say he was not a hyphenated American, because that simple mark dividing races and nationalities also divides our people as a nation.

Instead, he encouraged his followers and confederates to carry his African-American status like a battle flag to rally the troops.

I considered myself an equal mix of Anglo and Chinese until my wife pointed out this week, “Obama’s more of a white man than you are.”  After blinking my eyes a few times, I asked what she meant.

“Think about it.  Your father was part Native American.  Duh.”

I thought about it, and she was right.  My mother is full-blooded Chinese, my father was around a quarter Native American, so that makes me less than 40 percent Anglo, or white.  And (if you’ll pardon my grammar) that makes the black candidate for president more of a white man than me.

Obama’s choice to play the race card may not be lost on a sizeable portion of the non-black electorate.  Some folks already mention the Bradley Effect, which says a decisive number of people just can’t bring themselves to vote for a black candidate, regardless of what they say or do leading up to Election Day.  The name comes from former Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley, a black candidate who lost his 1982 California gubernatorial bid even though he led in pre-election polls.  

And today, less than two weeks from Election Day, it’s easy to understand why some non-black voters don’t want others to know they do not support Obama.  Who can blame them when any criticism or questioning of the candidate of change results in immediate old-school accusations of racism?

And that brings us to the second factor, the issue of trust.  Obama never really condemns the past and current political views of fellow Chicagoan Bill Ayers, pointing out, instead, that Ayers’ terrorist activities occurred when Obama was 8 years old, and, therefore, have no connection to Obama today.  If that’s true, then Obama’s position negates the argument of some black people who push for reparations because their ancestors were slaves.  That’s because slavery occurred before those living today were born, and, therefore, has no connection to anyone today.  Unless, of course, we have people who believe in slavery, in segregation, and in the superiority of one race over another.  If so, then we can make an argument that those who pal around socially, politically, or professionally with such individuals must share some level of affinity.

But Citizen Obama does not fully trust the American people to know his full and true relationship with Ayers, because he does not trust the American people to look at his life and accept him as our president.

The American people knew George W. Bush grew up around such neo-con luminaries as Don Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, but we elected him twice to the presidency.

The American people knew Bush was an average college student, and at one time was what some would call a drunkard who even lost his driver’s license for drunk driving, but we elected him twice to the presidency.

The American people knew Bush was an unsuccessful businessman and person not glib or quick on his feet, but we elected him twice to the presidency.

The American people only know about Obama what Obama wants us to know.  And mistrust in the judgment of the American people may tip enough votes to McCain, a candidate the American people know well.