The Year in Review
I just wanted come out of my hiatus to post my thoughts on the year and on this remarkable inauguration so I will have a historical record of what I was thinking.
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The Year in Review
2008 was an unusually long year. It doesn’t really end until 12:00pm on January 20th. Finally, with collective relief only matched by our public exuberance, we rid ourselves of the last eight years since George W. Bush took the same oath that Barack H. Obama will take at high noon.
In 2007, we had no stock market nor housing collapse, no attacks in Mumbai, no Sarah Palin, no nominee for either the Democratic or Republican Parties. Cyclone Nargis hadn’t killed thousands in Burma. Fidel Castro still led Cuba, Lehman Brothers was still a respected name, we still didn’t know John Edwards cheated on his wife and Elliot Spitzer wasn’t the butt of our jokes. Proposition 8 hadn’t caused a fury in California. We hadn’t had a fascination with a robot dancing with a fire extinguisher, and we still liked Batman more than the Joker. Here in Massachusetts, State Senator Dianne Wilkerson hadn’t stuffed money up her shirt (at least, as far as we know). And State Senator Marzilli had not knocked people out of the way at a hot-dog stand in Lowell during a police chase after harassing several women.
It was all far more sad than funny, but it was sometimes really, *really* funny. Come to think of it, that same sentiment also sums up Sarah Palin’s Thanksgiving press conference in front of turkeys being slaughtered. Sad, but also really, really funny.
But despite this obsession with the profoundly idiotic and macabre, we also kept hope alive. In early January, Barack Obama lit up the political scene by winning in Iowa. Then Hillary Clinton won in New Hampshire, setting the stage for a long and grueling primary fight. This allowed John King of CNN to play with his really expensive Election-Day gadgets and Wolf Blitzer (of the same station) to talk to holograms of people nobody cares about. Barack’s victory in Iowa drove Hillary to tears, Bill to a bout of “subtle” racism, and Sarah to Saks. (John McCain was left wandering around on a stage somewhere looking for Mr. Puddles.)
During all of this, everybody became a pundit. People everywhere were suddenly “experts” on polls, focus groups, speechwriting, messaging, field operations, fundraising numbers and community organizing.
It is the spirit of those new community organizers which gave me the most hope for the year because 2008 was the year of rejuvenated civic participation on the ground. It was also a year when we took the lessons of the brave new online world and brought it to the next level with an army of online organizers. It was a year when “the grassroots” wasn’t just a catchphrase, but the best way to win-and made people participate in their democracy, to boot.
And those community activists, those who inspired hope in their hometowns, looked up their chain of command to a leader who drew from the best of American history.
I’ve often thought of Obama as a sort of slick online mash-up of some of America’s greatest leaders-a healthy dose of John F. Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln remixed to the beat of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He is, of course, more than that. His story represents that this generation-our generation-can make history. The million people who travel to watch history unfold feel, perhaps for the first time, that they are living a life to be read about by posterity.
Sometimes, we over-glorify our predecessors, believing that we aren’t capable of greatness: that we could not have fought for Independence and founded “a nation of laws, not men”; that we could not summon the “better angels of our nature”; that we could not be as brave as the Greatest Generation of the Second World War and have “nothing to fear but fear itself.” But 2008 showed us that we can rise to the occasion. We can be a nation not of our base fears, but of our ferocious aspirations.
I don’t think of Obama as an Adams, a Lincoln or a Roosevelt. But I expect him to do his best and I hope that the grassroots will do their part to face the challenges of the 21st century with passion, honesty, and vigor. Today we move forward into an era of self-confidence and hope in the face of profound challenges. But we face these challenges with a return to our core values: accountability, transparency, freedom of opportunity and equality for all.
I cannot say what’s in store for 2009. Who would have believed 2008? All I know is that at the end of this decade, we can start anew.
--
The Year in Review
2008 was an unusually long year. It doesn’t really end until 12:00pm on January 20th. Finally, with collective relief only matched by our public exuberance, we rid ourselves of the last eight years since George W. Bush took the same oath that Barack H. Obama will take at high noon.
In 2007, we had no stock market nor housing collapse, no attacks in Mumbai, no Sarah Palin, no nominee for either the Democratic or Republican Parties. Cyclone Nargis hadn’t killed thousands in Burma. Fidel Castro still led Cuba, Lehman Brothers was still a respected name, we still didn’t know John Edwards cheated on his wife and Elliot Spitzer wasn’t the butt of our jokes. Proposition 8 hadn’t caused a fury in California. We hadn’t had a fascination with a robot dancing with a fire extinguisher, and we still liked Batman more than the Joker. Here in Massachusetts, State Senator Dianne Wilkerson hadn’t stuffed money up her shirt (at least, as far as we know). And State Senator Marzilli had not knocked people out of the way at a hot-dog stand in Lowell during a police chase after harassing several women.
It was all far more sad than funny, but it was sometimes really, *really* funny. Come to think of it, that same sentiment also sums up Sarah Palin’s Thanksgiving press conference in front of turkeys being slaughtered. Sad, but also really, really funny.
But despite this obsession with the profoundly idiotic and macabre, we also kept hope alive. In early January, Barack Obama lit up the political scene by winning in Iowa. Then Hillary Clinton won in New Hampshire, setting the stage for a long and grueling primary fight. This allowed John King of CNN to play with his really expensive Election-Day gadgets and Wolf Blitzer (of the same station) to talk to holograms of people nobody cares about. Barack’s victory in Iowa drove Hillary to tears, Bill to a bout of “subtle” racism, and Sarah to Saks. (John McCain was left wandering around on a stage somewhere looking for Mr. Puddles.)
During all of this, everybody became a pundit. People everywhere were suddenly “experts” on polls, focus groups, speechwriting, messaging, field operations, fundraising numbers and community organizing.
It is the spirit of those new community organizers which gave me the most hope for the year because 2008 was the year of rejuvenated civic participation on the ground. It was also a year when we took the lessons of the brave new online world and brought it to the next level with an army of online organizers. It was a year when “the grassroots” wasn’t just a catchphrase, but the best way to win-and made people participate in their democracy, to boot.
And those community activists, those who inspired hope in their hometowns, looked up their chain of command to a leader who drew from the best of American history.
I’ve often thought of Obama as a sort of slick online mash-up of some of America’s greatest leaders-a healthy dose of John F. Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln remixed to the beat of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He is, of course, more than that. His story represents that this generation-our generation-can make history. The million people who travel to watch history unfold feel, perhaps for the first time, that they are living a life to be read about by posterity.
Sometimes, we over-glorify our predecessors, believing that we aren’t capable of greatness: that we could not have fought for Independence and founded “a nation of laws, not men”; that we could not summon the “better angels of our nature”; that we could not be as brave as the Greatest Generation of the Second World War and have “nothing to fear but fear itself.” But 2008 showed us that we can rise to the occasion. We can be a nation not of our base fears, but of our ferocious aspirations.
I don’t think of Obama as an Adams, a Lincoln or a Roosevelt. But I expect him to do his best and I hope that the grassroots will do their part to face the challenges of the 21st century with passion, honesty, and vigor. Today we move forward into an era of self-confidence and hope in the face of profound challenges. But we face these challenges with a return to our core values: accountability, transparency, freedom of opportunity and equality for all.
I cannot say what’s in store for 2009. Who would have believed 2008? All I know is that at the end of this decade, we can start anew.