One of the other side's attacks on the left has long been that we're too cynical. We talk about America's problems and not the American dream. We focus on it's flaws, not it's future. We're uncomfortable talking about what it can accomplish.
Or so they say.
This is the main reason Reagan succeeded. Americans didn't want his conservative ideology; he gave up on cutting government within his first couple of years.
It was that he was cheery, happy, and proud of America.
How Barack Obama has turned that on it's head.
It could have not have been more clear last night as he told his only in America tale. When he called McCain out and said we all love our country.
And when he focused on the future. The future those of us who grew up watching men on the moon believed in. The future they stole from us.
I'll admit, I got cynical. He didn't. Oh, he's realistic. Unlike Reagan, he can love America without ignoring the faults. And that's how things get fixed.
Seems he always believed he could change the future.
McCain, on the other, is now leading the party of cynics. You can't fix that, Mr. Obama. You can't do all that stuff. And you must be a celebrity, because all those people can't cheer a national leader. We're all crooks who can't be trusted to solve problems.
The maverick banner, which he's trying to reclaim with his veep pick, is really just cover for someone who can't believe we can solve problems, so why try?
It's like his approach to health care, voice by his chief advisor the other day. We got health care for all. Emergency rooms. Just redefine the problem away.
Or his approach to a timetable, which even Bush is now negotiating. We can't fix Iraq. If we leave they'll kill each other.
You hear the same thing constantly on Fox News and from pretty much every GOPer who speaks out. There are five "he can't fix it" to every "McCain will fix it." And that's being generous.
Which is perhaps why their politics and economics are based not on patriotism and fixing America, but by taking their ball -- their tax money -- and going home. While bridges and levees collapse and America falls apart.
This campaign is the audacity of hope vs. "you whippersnappers have some audacity to hope."
Thanks, Barack. For making it easy to believe in the future again.