After celebrating this year's Insurance & Technology Elite 8 Award winners on Monday night at Insurance & Technology's Executive Summit, held in Phoenix, Arizona, we spent the last gathering of the event celebrating the election of a new president last night. This is not to say by any means that the result of the election was unanimously welcomed, but Democrats and Republicans alike put aside partisan difference, clinked glasses and wished the new president well.

In the coming days we will explore the likely implications of a Barack Obama presidency for the insurance industry. In the meantime, we can once again celebrate the peaceful transition of government. We can also appreciate an election too decisive to raise acrimonious disputes about the result, and a gracious concession speech from the losing candidate, Senator John McCain, in whose state we gathered.

Barack Obama's party affiliation meant that many Americans would not vote for him as a matter of their own affiliation and their own political philosophy. The suggestion that their votes were motivated by less honorable considerations is a canard. However, voters who regret the election of a Democrat, can nevertheless rejoice that the winner's race was no obstacle to his winning both an electoral and popular victory. If nothing else, reaching the milestone of the first president of African ancestry will make it easier to insist, in the spirit of Martin Luther King recommended, that we focus on the content of a candidate's character -- and, of course, on his performance -- rather than the color of his skin.

We doubt that the election of Mr. Obama will entirely fulfill either the hopes of his supporters or the fears of his opponents. In the meantime, we congratulate him on his victory and wish him well as he prepares to shoulder tremendous and consequential responsibilities.