Barack - Please Bring Back the Vision

I’m a liberal, so I did what I had to do and voted for John Kerry in the last election. But all during the campaign I kept wishing I could be voting for that Obama guy instead. You know - the one who said at the convention that there aren’t any red states or blue states, just the United States?

Now that I actually get my chance to vote for Obama, I admit that this is the first election I’ve been truly excited about since Kennedy ran - and I wasn’t anywhere near old enough to vote in that one.

There were exciting, emotionally-charged changes when Kennedy won, even in the small towns of America where I was still in grade school. Our town is unlikely to have voted for Kennedy (only one family in town was Catholic, and, believe it or not, that was a real issue in 1960), but his vision was bigger than the divisions between left and right.

Our math and science classes suddenly took on more meaning, and our teachers were more enthused. I can remember being pushed out onto the soccer field to kick the ball around because our teachers said that Kennedy wanted America’s children to be fit and healthy. I can remember being taken to our teacher’s house to watch John Glenn’s return to Earth in 1962, an achievement that we associated with Kennedy’s dream to land an American on the moon.

Even school kids were energized and excited by Kennedy’s vision for America. I believed that Obama could bring those days back, when we were encouraged to dream, and serve the greater good.

Months ago I started out hopeful and enthused about the opportunity to see the country turned around - the possibility that people might actually have access to health care someday, that we might have a president who thought things through before rushing into wars over oil, and that our economy would get back on the right footing by investing public money into infrastructure and green technology.

I hoped that Obama would keep reminding us that we’re all in this together, and that our individual service to America can bring about the change our children need for the 21st century.

Yet, even with all my enthusiasm for Obama’s vision, I still felt confident that we wouldn’t be all that bad off even if he lost. McCain seemed like an honorable man, someone who really had America’s interest at heart, even though, as a liberal, I disagree with him on most of the major issues. After all, he has that grandfatherly look that seems so harmless.

But the tone of the campaign has changed so much that I no longer feel ‘excited’ so much as drained from a week-long adrenaline rush.

I’m no longer ‘enthused’ - I’m worried that things may actually get worse instead of better. The man at the top of the Republican ticket has already abdicated in favor of his running mate, and Sarah Palin has the same black and white, for us or against us Bush-like worldview that is so dangerous on the world stage.

And the Democratic campaign somehow morphed into a fight against something - against Bush, against Palin. The word “change” doesn’t mean all that much anymore, because it’s come unpinned from the larger vision. The Republican tactic of setting people against each other is working, again.

But I see an opportunity in McCain’s choice of Palin for VP. There is no longer any way that the Republican campaign can belittle Obama’s star quality. That gives Obama the opportunity to skip all the detailed policy talks and go for the big venues - and give those rousing speeches that he does so well.

Barack, forget the “McCain is Bush” strategy. There’s no emotional power in it. Ignore Palin, if possible - she was thrown into the race as a distraction, and the people who are willing to vote for her ‘because she’s just like us’ will never vote for you.

Instead, bring together as many thousands of people as possible, as often as possible, and give them the speeches you gave at the beginning of the campaign. If you can’t remember how invigorating those speeches were, for both you and us, perhaps you need a few days of silent, solitary time to regain your perspective.

The Republicans learned that division wins elections back when Nixon was running, and they’ve been using the same tactics, successfully, ever since.

The only way to win against that kind of engineered cynicism is to go back to your roots - remind us why your vision of America is better. Make it personal - not about you, personally, but about me, personally. Show me how I can help rebuild this nation into the America that we lost back in the riots of 1968. Help us regain the optimism that drained away with the assassinations of America’s finest leaders, and with the polarization of America into ‘us’ against ‘them.’

Ask me to serve - not to serve your campaign, but to serve the country. Ask for sacrifice for the common good, something that candidates have been afraid to do for the last half-century. Remind us of who we are, and that we’re better than the divisive politics that pit soccer moms against welfare moms, and corporate fat cats against the Eastern elite. Those divisions were manufactured for the benefit of powerful men seeking more power - it has never been who we truly are, as a nation.

We’re better than that. You’re very good at reminding us of that. Now it’s time to remind yourself.