I lean further to the left than Obama and most Democrats. Having said that, I am an enthusiastic supporter of Obama -- and now Obama/Biden -- and have given around $300 to the campaign (so far).
I watched the speech tonight, and I was moved beyond measure. I called my closest friends immediately, but when I finally reached them, we were all at a loss for words. The speech was above and beyond; it was perhaps the greatest political speech that I haver ever heard, and I was just so damn proud to be an American.
This speech has me thinking about inspiration: what is it to be inspired? To be sure, it is a strange mental state -- and a rare one, too. Rare because sometimes there is nothing inspiring around us; rare because we are sometimes so caught up in our own individualist outlook that we do not allow ourselves to be inspired by the people around us.
Republicans (and now, thankfully, far fewer Democrats) have accused us Obama supporters of drinking the Kool-Aid, of falling for some elaborate trick. And why? Largely because we have been so inspired -- and so publicly inspired.
Could it be that after eight years of Bush inspiration is now such an uncommon mental state that it produces in others -- and even in ourselves -- an extreme skepticism, an extreme suspicion? I, for one, have at times said to myself, "Are you really buying all of this? You, who are educated and appropriately critical of most other things?"
I suspect that Obama's speech tonight made many people remember what it felt like to be inspired. What I hope is that this feeling, this mental state is not pushed away, having been dismissed as a kind of childish optimism. What I hope is that this feeling, this mental state is embraced as something that is rare, beautiful, and appropriately human.