Yes, Virginia, You Can

Today, January 20th, 2009, was a historic event. A day for my generation to tell our children about. A day united in the hope that the world may soon change, for the better.

I only have vague memories of Bill Clinton's election as president. The first time I was only in the 5th grade and knew very little if anything about politics. I understood that the president was decided through a national vote and would serve then as the leader of our country but the capacity of that meant very little to me. I hardly had any idea about the world outside my suburban town. What I did know about the campaign was that my parents supported Clinton but I didn't know why. I knew he played the saxaphone and that the current president George Bush did not like broccoli. And then there was the other candidate, who had big ears, a lot of money and what everyone told me was no hope at actually winning the presidency.

I recall my younger brother and I accompanying my mother when she went to her polling booth at the nearby middle school. I also remember my brother and I being so misbehaved we were in deep trouble when we got home. Hardly one to remember every childhood squabble, my mom vividly remembers the night as well, our misbehavior overshadowing all other significances of that night.

We must have watched the inauguration at school. I feel like I know it happened but I can't say I can remember it at all. I do have a small glimmer of Clinton playing his sax on the television that night, although the context escapes me.

When he was reelected four years later I was older, a high school student. I had taken history and politics courses and I had a greater idea of the world at large. Yet I paid little attention to the campaign. In fact, I have absolutely no clue who Bill Clinton even ran against. It was such a given that he would simply remain president. Was there an inauguration that year? Is the president re-sworn in when he takes a second term? I'm embarrassed to say I just don't know.

In the year 2000 I turned 18 and was able to vote in my first presidential election. But truthfully I was far more interested in the fact that I could vote than I was in the candidates running. I supported Gore because I was decidedly Democrat but I could never have had a conversation on his platform or his policies. I basically had one stance to quote, I was definitely pro-choice and George W. Bush was not. This was about as solid a reasoning as any it seemed.

I was registered in my hometown but away at school so I voted via absetee ballot and therefore the day of the election was hardly different than any other day. Election night was spent in my dorm at Michigan, college students blasting the polls from every bedroom, running up and down the halls. The race was tight and when we went to bed that night we still had no idea who had won. I don't remember finding out the results and I certainly do not recall watching Bush being sworn in as president that January. I simply went back to being part of the apathetic generation.

Then September 11th happened. Politics were on everyone's mind. Our country went to war for reasons I'm still not entirely sure about. I lived abroad and feared the judgement towards my nationality. "Everybody wants to be American. The world wants to be like us." No, they didn't. There was little respect for our nation, a harsh opinion of our politics, our president, our entire culture. We became a global embarrassment.

The campaign leading up to the 2004 election should have inspired me, should have made me and others like me sit up and pay attention. But it didn't. We were shamed. And we thought the nation agreed. But John Kerry was simply not the right figure to get behind. Most people I knew supported him but not because of him. It was merely a matter of being not in support of the current president. And this proved to not be enough to move a nation. We didn't step up to the plate. We didn't show up in droves at our polling booths. I again submitted an absentee ballot in advance and went to bed without even watching.

Again I don't remember watching an inauguration. Was Bush sworn in again? Did he draw a crowd of supporters? For the second time our president lost the popular vote but won the electoral college. He wasn't someone the majority of the country wanted. He stayed in office mostly because we were complacent.

Today was different. This year was different. This president is different. Finally.

I will admit I had initially been a Hillary Clinton supporter. I thought she was without a doubt the most qualified person for the job. But I was quick to switch my loyalty to Barak Obama. In 2004, when I was briefly living in Chicago, I would meet up occasionally with a high school friend in the city for a summer internship. She was working on Obama's Senate campaign and she could not say enough about this man she was supporting. "He will be president one day, I promise." When he secured the democratic nomination, her words were the first thing that came to mind.

And I followed this whole campaign. I watched every single debate. I, like so many other young voters, those who hadn't had a candidate who spoke to them ever, finally had a reason to sit up and pay attention. Maybe it was because the policies suddenly spoke to me. Roe v Wade and the Republican agenda to overturn the precident it set remained a concern. But there was more now. I found myself one of the far too many who couldn't afford proper health care. My friends were being laid off due to the crumbling economy. My hometown of Detroit declined at an exceedingly rapid rate. My brother and roommate, school teachers, complained of the decline in our educational systems. It wasn't about helping an unknown "other" anymore, things had gotten personal, too close. The country needed to change.

As much as I loved Hillary Clinton, and still do, I now know she was not the right person for the time. We needed Barak Obama. My apathetic generation suddenly had someone that they could look up to. Hillary Clinton may have been qualified for the job but she represented a thought that scared some. We could have ended up with two entire decades led by only two families. Our political system, created in retaliation from the exclusive monarchy of Europe, would have become what it had set out to escape. The Clintons will always maintain a strong force in politics, the Kennedy's continue to spread their influence, the Bush's aren't going anywhere soon. There will always be political royalty. But we didn't want that as the face of our nation. Not now.

I cried on election night like so many others. And I felt wrong about it because I didn't think I had that right. But this win was something so personal, so familial, so touching to so many. It was more than just that we had finally crossed a racial barrier most thought would never happen in their lifetimes. We suddenly had this man, this intelligent, articulate, man who had experienced LIFE. Yes, his education was elitist (as the opposition so often pointed out) but it was because he had worked for it, not been handed it by being born to a prominent family. He was, for the first time really, living proof of the American dream.

Yes you can, truly be whatever you want to be.