Conceding with Grace .....

A week ago, in this column for the Midland Reporter-Telegram, Ed Todd recalled a time when Presidential candidates could conduct themselves with grace, even genitility in addressing their opponents.

Ed noted that, in 1952, in the hours following Republican Dwight Eisenhower's election as President, Democrat Adlai Stevenson said, “the people have rendered their verdict and I gladly accept it. General Eisenhower has been a great leader in war. He has been a vigorous and valiant opponent in the campaign. These qualities will now be dedicated to leading us all through the next four years. It is traditionally American to fight hard before an election. It is equally traditional to close ranks as soon as the people have spoken.”

Perhaps the magnanimity, the grace displayed by Stevenson has not been trampled underfoot by what our political prcess has become ...

In the hours following Democrat Barrack Obama's election as President, Republican John McCain has said, "In a contest as long and difficult as this campaign has been, his success alone commands my respect for his ability and perseverance. But that he managed to do so by inspiring the hopes of so many millions of Americans who had once wrongly believed that they had little at stake or little influence in the election of an American president is something I deeply admire and commend him for achieving."

John McCain is no stranger to "grace under pressure" ... he was well schooled in it as an officer and a gentleman, a combat verteran, and a victim of brutal captivity and torture. It should be no surprise that he conceded yesterday's results with grace.

"I urge all Americans who supported me to join me in not just congratulating him," he told supporters at his headquarters in Phoenix, "but offering our next president our good will and earnest effort to find ways to come together to find the necessary compromises 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."

McCain closed with, "I wish Godspeed to the man who was my former opponent and will be my president. And I call on all Americans, as I have often in this campaign, to not despair of our present difficulties, but to believe, always, in the promise and greatness of America, because nothing is inevitable here. Americans never quit. We never surrender. We never hide from history ... we make history. Thank you, and God bless you, and God bless America."

HERE is a transcription of McCain's concession speaach from the Associated Press ... I recommend you read it.