A friend sent me this video from MoveOn.org today, and after a solid two weeks of sleepless campaign nightmare nights, it very much struck a chord.
More than ever before, in the last year I have been astounded by the power of one person.
We're within two weeks of learning the outcome of a movement, an amalgamation of shared ideas that could alter the course of this great nation. So many of us have participated in it and the compilation of our phone calls, canvassing, $25 donations and blog posts have given it the momentum necessary to thrive, and now the courageous friends I've made on the campaign trail are confessing to me daily the heart palpitations we're all feeling as we wait. Barack Obama downplays it when we credit him with this outpouring of civic participation, but at this excruciating time I think it's important for all of us to remember why we all chose to support this exceptional man on his historic journey.
He asked us to hope. These last few days as the dirtiest zingers flood the media and the capacity for manipulation and suppression looms, as it did in Florida and Ohio the last time we found ourselves here, I'm trying my hardest to remember that this was always a leap of faith. The belief that a truck-driving, Confederate flag toting Georgian could accept a black man as our President. That a new generation would find its political consciousness and mobilize. That political strategists and poll workers could appeal to their better selves and operate under the ideal of fairness established in our constitution. That we could end a war that never should have been waged in the first place and bring our exhausted soldiers home to their families. That this looming feeling of despair that's enveloped our bank accounts, thoughts, attitudes and dreams does not have to be the end of this story.
It started because Barack Obama believed in us and our capacity to do this together. I'm thinking back to the jitters that must have been in his stomach that night before his keynote convention speech in 2004, when a nobody made us all sit up in our chairs and really listen for the first time in a long time, making himself -- and all of us -- a somebody.
It's despicable to think of four more years of this downward spiral, but we can't operate in that mindset right now. We all owe it to these ideals we hold dear, and the collective energy we've created in this country to believe in him.
Last year everyone told me I was crazy to be supporting this man. They couldn't get past their cynical beliefs that politics-as-usual was an inherent state of existence in America today. In Iowa the week before the caucus, my stomach was in knots with anxiety and the fear that I wouldn't know what to believe in if they were right. Well, we all know that they were wrong. On January 3, I stood with my best friend in a gym and watched Obama's victory speech, and what will always impress me about that moment was the look of subtle confidence on his face as he did what everyone else said was impossible. I was struck with the feeling that he knew the whole time that it would happen, and that knowledge came from a sincere faith in the power of millions of people thinking rationally about what it means to be a community instead of an incongruous group of individuals who have given up.
We are not going to give up this time. I refuse to look back and say I didn't give this everything I had. I've even got my 83-year-old grandmother set up with a My.BarackObama.com account calling undecided voters in Nevada. I'm going to vote early on Monday, since it's a great way to reduce the chance of confusion and suppression on election day. (See Declare Yourself's Why Wait? initiative to find out if you can vote early in your state.)
Beyond all the usual suspects, though, I hope that all of us will be bold enough to have faith in each other. As my father the football coach would say: Put your own jitters aside and get your game face on because it's winning time.