Keeping the Faith

With all the negativite campaigning and hate/fear-mongering going on, it is very easy to lose sight of the primary message that Barack Obama offered us--hope. Hope that we as a nation can, will and must do better. After what we have seen in the past eight years, "hope" was an elusive ideal. And yet here was this extraordinary man telling us that it's still out there, that it is in us, that we have the power, that there are enough of us who want change to make it happen.

And against all hope, we found the strength to hope again--as we watched tens of thousands join together for a common purpose, our purpose, of renewing this nation and restoring her to the greatness she once held. We realized, at last, that we were not alone. At times it has seemed almost surreal. After watching voters actually re-elect George W. Bush, it was easy to believe that the majority of this country had, well, lost its mind. Could it be that most Americans really do believe we have been on the wrong road after all? All of a sudden, the dream was coming true--we could actually reclaim our country.

Still, there have been disappointments in the past, and those disappointments have bred a fear of hope and optimism, lest we see those hopes dashed once again. But Sen. Obama convinced us to try, that we must keep our tenous grasp on hope. The last few weeks have been difficult. Yes, Obama is ahead in the polls. But the wider the gap gets, the more vicious the attacks get. It may be getting easier to be hopeful that Obama will win, but it gets more difficult to hope for the best of human nature.

But there are two sides to every coin. For every story like the one of an elderly black man in Virginia who had his Obama sign stolen and replaced with a rebel flag, there is a story like this, recounted by one early voter, that restores your hope once again:

For me the most moving moment came when the family in front of me, comprising probably 4 generations of voters (including an 18 year old girl voting for her first time and a 90-something hunched-over grandmother), got their turn to vote. When the old woman left the voting booth she made it about halfway to the door before collapsing in a nearby chair, where she began weeping uncontrollably. When we rushed over to help we realized that she wasn't in trouble at all but she had not truly believed, until she left the booth, that she would ever live long enough to cast a vote for an African-American for president.

The above excerpt is from Ben Smith's Blog on Politico.com.