I hadn't originally intended to stay up all night for the US election results. But I'm glad I did.
It was a marvellous result. Obama's acceptance speech was inspiring and, I think, an historic moment. Today we can dare to feel a little bit more hopeful and optimistic about the world.
The trouble is that, despite all the understandable rhetoric, the extreme right has not actually gone away. If we needed any reminder, it came this morning on The Daily Politics with the appearance on Andrew Neil's sofa of the appallingly nasty Anne Coulter.
47% of the electorate, which is still after all nearly half, voted against Obama. Some of them are the people who were energised by the ludicrous Sarah Palin.
These people could be incredibly dangerous. It is a measure of how deluded they are that some of them believe in all seriousness that Obama is a communist. (Actually, watching one or two of his policy speeches, I am tempted to see him in European terms as more or less a Christian Democrat.)
I fear that these lunatics will now be so angry that at least one of them will try to kill Obama. I just hope his security people will be up to the mark and not let him take any rash decisions, as Kennedy did when he rejected advice to ride with the bullet-proof lid on his car in Dallas in November 1963.
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