Barack Obama has inspired me to do some things that I have never done before now. The first was to give money to a political campaign. Not big money, but to the tune of a couple of hundred dollars. I want him to succeed so I’m helping in that small way that I can. Even bigger for me than giving money, was putting an Obama bumpersticker on my car. I’ve always been of the feeling that the less others know about you the better, so I’ve stayed away from political bumperstickers since I was a teenager. I’m not interested in being judged or prejudged by whoever happens to be behind me. Especially not while living in NC, where the range of people and political beliefs can be quite large in the metropolitan areas, but rather narrower in the country. Not sure whether this is paranoia or just plan cowardice, but whichever, I’m past it now. I want people to know who I support and believe in.

Yard signs have also not been my (or my wife’s) thing in the past. We just weren’t interested in broadcasting our politics to the world or, at the least, to our neighbors. Now we have two Obama signs gracing our yard. Even stranger for me, I couldn’t put these signs out until the yard was properly mowed and trimmed. Not my favorite activity and one I’m likely to put off at any opportunity. This time though, I didn’t want people to think: “look, the guy with the crappy lawn is supporting Obama”. Obama has enough problems with guilt-by-association to also be saddled with my slovenly lawn habits.

Additionally, the bumpersticker is making me drive better. I don’t want to cut anyone off and have them not vote for the man because they think I drive like an asshole. Not that I do, it’s just that I’m extra conscious of it now.

Politically, I consider myself to be an independent but definitely a left-leaning one. Since I could vote, the choices of presidential candidates have been frequently rather poor. Dukakis and Bush in 1988, Clinton, Bush and Perot in 1992, Clinton, Dole and Perot in 1996, Gore and Bush in 2000, Kerry and Bush in 2004. I’ve held my nose and voted for the Democratic candidate before, but I’ve also lodged the protest vote before and voted for Perot. Honestly, most of the time I haven’t seen too much of a difference between the candidates. The Democrats of Bill and Hillary’s group and the Rebuplicans in the mold of Bush Sr. and Dole were pretty similar in many respects. I would’ve thought the same of Gore and Bush Jr, but George quickly disabused me (and the world) that he was in anyway in the same vein. Whole new world of destructiveness under him.

So these last 8 years of our current leader has made me both scared and hopeful for our future. I’m scared of what we have become as a nation. To me it seems at times that we are simultaneously weaker and more arrogant than we were. Much weaker in comparison to what we could be and much more arrogant than what we are, in any way, could justify. Don’t get me wrong, we are a tremendous country, but our belief in our own exceptionalism has continuously let us overlook our flaws and problems. And the problems are many and daunting. Poverty, war and disease. Crumbling education, infrastructure, air travel and health care systems. And the reasons for these are as varied as the problems are daunting. Some caused by greed, some just plain laziness, others by incompetent leadership more concerned with the quick political boost than the long term solution. We really, really need leaders that can see the problems, talk to us honestly about them and maybe help lead us to long term solutions.

As Thomas Friedman put it in the NY Times yesterday:

Who will tell the people? We are not who we think we are. We are living on borrowed time and borrowed dimes. We still have all the potential for greatness, but only if we get back to work on our country.

I don’t know if Barack Obama can lead that, but the notion that the idealism he has inspired in so many young people doesn’t matter is dead wrong. “Of course, hope alone is not enough,” says Tim Shriver, chairman of Special Olympics, “but it’s not trivial. It’s not trivial to inspire people to want to get up and do something with someone else.”

It is especially not trivial now, because millions of Americans are dying to be enlisted — enlisted to fix education, enlisted to research renewable energy, enlisted to repair our infrastructure, enlisted to help others. Look at the kids lining up to join Teach for America. They want our country to matter again. They want it to be about building wealth and dignity — big profits and big purposes. When we just do one, we are less than the sum of our parts. When we do both, said Shriver, “no one can touch us.”

The past 8 years of arrogance and fearful weakness are what scare me and give me cause for alarm in looking towards my daughter’s future. What will the world be like when she is grown? Will we continue down that path, deluding ourselves that bombs and outrageously rich CEOs make us a better country or will we start trying to change our lives for the better? Will she grow up wanting to be a teacher or a Doctor or a Hilton girl? This is where the hope comes in. I see her and her concern for others and for fairness in all things and I know that on some level it will get better in the near future. Even with McCain is will be better compared to the past 8 years under Bush. For all McCain’s faults, the man does have a brain.

But I see most hope for real change, exciting change that alters the way we think and act as a nation, under Obama. With Obama I see a future for my daughter that is full of perils and full of work but most importantly full of hope and promise. So my signs are up, my bumpersticker on and tomorrow I’ll go cast my vote for what I hope to be a far better future.

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