Someone to go to the well with

President Lyndon Baines Johnson nationalized the old Texas sentiment of confidence and respect: "He’s someone to go to the well with."

As we approach the end of the Bush-Cheney administration and the promise of President-elect Obama, we are presented with the consequences of eight years of nihilistic politics, greed-and-crony finance, and feeding of hatreds and division among our brothers and sisters.

That catastrophic bequest is the lack of confidence and uncertain liquidity in our financial system that threatens to squander our life savings, and kill innovation and the common effort.

Hard work and innovation with a common effort deserve the kind of respect that led LBJ to recognize that the civil rights movement in more ways than one restored the promise of America for all Americans.

The legacy of Bush-Cheney is the loss of that confidence and respect, the belief that we’re all in this together with men and women who are people we would go the well with.

That's what electing Obama means for us. The guy actually believes that our government should serve us; that the loss of much of our life savings can be recouped, that education is not for the few.

So as the GOP smirks at voting rights today, as the GOP warns Obama to go slow, let's look to the bleak near future of the economy with the same commitment and guidance that the civil rights movement offered all of us: We're in this together and we respect and value our fellow citizens.

And with a common effort, nothing can stop us as we go to the well together.