Two years ago, I was in Youngstown, Ohio walking door-to-door canvassing for Senator Barack Obama. The snow was literally coming down sideways that first day. I had committed to spending ten days hundreds of miles away from my family and away from my demanding job as an attorney (to my partners' chagrin).
I put myself up in a crappy hotel off a highway for those ten days, ate cold pizza when I wasn't canvassing, listened to voters tell me how they were voting for anyone but my candidate, got threatened with an attack dog by a Ron Paul supporter, worked 14 hour days, and came down with pneumonia.
And I would do it all over again. In a heartbeat.
Not just because of the truly exceptional and dedicated people I met working for the campaign, not just because of the sense of camaraderie we felt, even as our candidate went down to an eight-point defeat at the hands of the equally exceptional Hillary Clinton. Those were good, life-changing experiences, but it's not why I would do it all again in Ohio, or in Pennsylvania or Virginia or Maryland.
I would do it all again because of accomplishments like this:
With the strokes of 22 pens, President Obama signed his landmark health care overhaul — the most expansive social legislation enacted in decades — into law on Tuesday, saying it enshrines "the core principle that everybody should have some basic security when it comes to their health care."
Mr. Obama signed the measure, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, during a festive and at times raucous ceremony in the East Room of the White House. He spoke to an audience of nearly 300, including more than 200 Democratic lawmakers who rode a yearlong legislative roller coaster that ended with House passage of the bill Sunday night. They interrupted him repeatedly with cheers, applause and standing ovations.
"The bill I’m signing will set in motion reforms that generations of Americans have fought for and marched for and hungered to see," Mr. Obama said, adding, "Today we are affirming that essential truth, a truth every generation is called to rediscover for itself, that we are not a nation that scales back its aspirations."
And because of this:
Oh yeah, this:
Ending one of the fiercest lobbying fights in Washington, Congress voted Thursday to force commercial banks out of the federal student loan market, cutting off billions of dollars in profits in a sweeping restructuring of financial-aid programs and redirecting most of the money to new education initiatives.
....Since the bank-based loan program began in 1965, commercial banks like Sallie Mae and Nelnet have received guaranteed federal subsidies to lend money to students, with the government assuming nearly all the risk. Democrats have long denounced the program, saying it fattened the bottom line for banks at the expense of students and taxpayers.
This is, to coin a phrase, sort of a big effin deal.
-- Kevin Drum, Mother Jones (quoting The New York Times)
And, because of things like this:
Barack Obama's ambitious goal of freeing the world of nuclear weapons won a significant boost tonight when Russia indicated that it had reached agreement with the United States on a historic nuclear arms reduction treaty.
Kremlin officials said that a document to replace the 1991 Start treaty had been agreed with Washington. A signing ceremony between Obama and Russia's president, Dmitry Medvedev, is likely to take place early next month in the Czech capital Prague, they said. . . .
The treaty, which substantially reduces Russian and US nuclear arsenals and delivery systems, is a big achievement for Obama and his attempts to reset relations with Russia. Negotiators had been trying to reach agreement for nearly a year, and the previous treaty expired last December.
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It is very easy, given the sheer number of seemingly insurmountable challenges we face, to become cynical and disillusioned. Obama is not a perfect President. And because progressives are generally wired to figure out how to better govern and solve problems, we tend to focus on identifying the problems we confront. It's the nature of caring about the world we live in. It's the nature of being fixers.
So we sometimes see past the accomplishments that are achieved, or we wonder how those accomplishments could have been made greater this time or how they can be made greater next time. That's not a bad thing. Better to continue to strive to make things better than to rest on laurels in satisfaction.
It may be hard to see, in the midst of the arm-waving madness of day-to-day politics, and it may be hard to hear in the din of cable news and the chatter of opinion-making, and it may be hard to comprehend, given the microscopic views our daily lives provides.
But the eyes and ears and understanding of history is much broader than ours. And this has been an historical week.
So, yes, strive, and continue to carry that fire inside that says, "Yes, but we could have done more...". That's the only way the world gets better.
But also take a moment and think about this week and appreciate that meaningful, historic good is being accomplished.
This is why many of us committed our time and energy and resources and sweat and tears and good shoes and health. For moments like this.
Savor it.