It wasn't that long ago.
There were photos and videos and testimonials and righteous surrogate smackdowns on cable news programs -- all attesting to the greatness of Obama. There were endless polls asking whether Obama was going to be merely the greatest president ever, or the greatest human being ever.
And yet here we are, just one month after the election, and everything's gone to hell.
Obama's cabinet is packed with all the wrong people. And he's already an epic fail on the economy, what with our Obama Recession sweeping the land. And no one on the left any longer believes in Hope or Change.
We felt so good a month ago. Anything was possible. Universal health care and clean energy and real living wages and worldwide peace and prosperity. The hardest question progressives had to answer was which kidney to sell to raise the money to travel to DC for the inauguration.
But now? Now, there is no hope. Now there is only despair. Despair about Obama's cabinet picks. Despair about Obama choosing to send his children to a private school in DC. Despair about a Republican winning a runoff election in Georgia. Despair about Obama's inaction on the economy. Despair about the potential negative impact of the illegal activities of the Illinois governor. Despair about broken campaign promises. Despair about a betrayal of the progressive left. Despair about the Supreme Court considering the case of Obama's supposedly fake birth certificate. Despair about what kind of puppy the Obamas will choose and when they will choose it.
And it isn't even January yet.
Maybe it's the weather. Days are short and cold and wet; maybe the entire Democratic party is suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder.
Maybe it's clinical depression. Democrats are so unaccustomed to joy that it's easier to obsess about the negative and search for any and all evidence, no matter how slight or circumspect, that we are all doomed.
Maybe there's something in the water.
We used to be fired up and ready to go, but no more. We used to believe that change was coming, but no more. We used to believe that help was on the way, but no more.
Well, I'm sick of the despair. I'm sick of the whining. I'm sick of the handwringing.
I was late to the Obama bandwagon. I mocked the videos, the slogans, the logos, the giddy insistence that Yes, We Can.
But I vowed to support the Democratic candidate, and after the exhilaration of the Democratic convention -- and more than a few inspiring arguments from this great virtual soapbox we all love -- I jumped on the bandwagon and never looked back. I drank the Kool-Aid, wore the T-shirt, proudly described myself as an Obamabot. I was fired up. I was ready to go. I was positively drunk with hope.
And I did not spend my nights and weekends at the phonebank, only to be filled with despair a mere month after the election. I did not get out of bed at five in the morning to go stand in line and cast a vote that I would regret only weeks later.
I did not put the bumper sticker on my car, the sign in the yard, the pin on my shirt -- only to give it up so easily because Obama hasn't fixed all my problems before even taking office.
And no cabinet of smart, if centrist, Democrats is going to rob me of my joy. And no loss in a deeply red state is going to make me give up. And no scandal that happens to involve a Democrat -- especially a scandal in which, if anything, Obama and his advisers appear to have acted quite righteously -- is going to make me feel any less proud or certain of the vote I rose at five in the morning to cast on Election Day.
It's not going to be easy. It's not going to be perfect. Obama will make mistakes. Obama will disappoint. So will other Democrats. Before the end of President Obama's first term, we will no doubt see other Democrats involved in scandal. We will no doubt lose other elections to rotten Republicans.
But I believed in the message I helped send to the world on November 4. I spent hours and money to send that message, and I'm not writing off that investment now, before Obama even moves into the Oval Office.
Call me optimistic. Call me naive. But I still want to believe that Obama's presidency will make this country better. I still want to believe that this election proved we can do anything -- anything -- if we fight hard enough. Peace and prosperity; equal rights for all. A cleaner world. A better world.
We know the battle ahead will be long, but always remember that no matter what obstacles stand in our way, nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change.
I am one of the millions of voices who called out for change. I am one of the millions who dared to believe in hope.
I believed it then, and I refuse to stop believing it now. No matter how difficult, how disappointed, the road ahead may be, I must -- we must -- remember hope.