After Landmark Victory, Challenges Begin for Obama

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• JIM LEHRER:

  And finally tonight on the election, we gave a night-after assignment to our — we gave a night-after assignment to our sterling analysts, syndicated columnist Mark Shields, New York Times columnist David Brooks. We asked each of them to select, for special attention, a few words from Barack Obama's speech in Grant Park last night.

  First, here's your selection, David.

  BARACK OBAMA, President-elect of the United States: I know you didn't do this just to win an election, and I know you didn't do it for me. You did it because you understand the enormity of the task that lies ahead.

  For even as we celebrate tonight, we know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime: two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century.

  Even as we stand here tonight, we know there are brave Americans waking up in the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan to risk their lives for us.

  There are mothers and fathers who will lie awake after their children fall asleep and wonder how they'll make the mortgage, or pay their doctor's bills, or save enough for their child's college education.

  There's new energy to harness, new jobs to be created, new schools to build, and threats to meet, alliances to repair.

  The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even in one term, but, America, I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you: We as a people will get there.