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A Renaissance of Hope

This election season energizes voters, new and old, more than any in recent memory. Hope, of course, is the reason. It is the center of America as a concept. Hope drove Europeans fleeing tyranny to America, and it sustained African slaves and displaced natives. Hope draws new immigrants, melding disparate histories and cultures. It alone distinguishes us as a people.

Barack Obama offers hope, and is the only candidate that understands it. At times it is immense and powerful, like ocean tides, and other times, fragile and ephemeral. Senator Obama understands that America's hope is at a low tide.

Early Americans sought freedom to think, speak, and worship. Precious as they are, they still leave us empty. Without something important to talk about, without a greater purpose, absent a divine place to invest faith, freedom to speak becomes babble and all action pointless. We wander through melancholy malls, then go home and watch reality television.

Americans chase wealth and power, but really want security for freedom. We built the world's greatest economy and military, spreading free markets and democracy world-wide. Unknowingly, we also sowed seeds of greed and violence worldwide. We rose to the top, but remain unsatisfied. Recent generations of Americans grew up in a hopeless land of plenty. Barrack Obama sees an ocean of unharvested hope. He senses the unfulfilled yearning of a nation without purpose.

Obama is criticized, by both Clinton and McCain, for a lack of experience. An ex-president accuses Obama of peddling fluff, saying that his platform and policies lack substance. They miss the point. Clear moral vision must precede specific policy. A leader provides vision, and the energy to drive a nation towards it. A leader needs the judgment to chose the best advisers and tap the right experience. That leader can then leverage the collective energy and experience of a nation.

In Ms. Clinton the new voter sees the old political processes, the status quo. McCain offers to continue a foreign policy strategy designed to sustain our oil based economic system, subsidizing it with trillions of dollars and thousands of lives. Many voters view that kind of experience as the experience of doing things poorly, and that is worse than no experience.

Each of us sees hope differently. Parents of teenagers may see in Obama the hope that their children's lives and futures won't be traded for oil. An office worker, languishing in a six-by-six cubicle, may see a leader offering a purpose greater than the his corporate mission statement. To older white voters, perhaps he represents hope that they can be a better people than the ones who, at one time, could not have supported a black candidate for president. Like our nation, they've come a long way, but hope to go further.

Learn more about this author, Jim Mcinvale.
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