It was close, but it was clear. And a long Election Day &045; and night &045; are over, and we have a president, thankfully without benefit of a protracted legal battle.

President Bush was re-elected with the most votes of any presidential candidate &045; but he didn’t quite win a mandate.

The mandate belongs to the American electorate &045; the 60 percent of eligible voters who turned out to choose a president.

And in a nation where some people get impatient waiting for a cheeseburger, some voters waited patiently for up to 10 hours for the chance to vote.

Both candidates reached out to the other side on Wednesday. Sen. John Kerry promised to work toward healing the nation; Bush said he would work to gain the support of those who voted against him.

Looking at a map of the electoral college, it would seem we are a nation divided into red states vs. blue states.

But if you look closer, many of those states are probably more purple than anything else.

As Americans, we have many of the same goals and concerns. We may have different ideas about how to reach them, but certainly we can compromise on the journey.

And we also have work to do. We are in the middle of a war with Iraq and a war against terrorism; we need more jobs and more affordable healthcare; we need to figure out how to fix Social Security.

Republicans and Democrats will have many more battles to come.

John Kerry, in his concession speech Wednesday, offered the perfect conciliatory note: &uot;In an American election, there are no losers, because whether or not our candidates are successful, the next morning we all wake up as Americans.&uot;