…Tell me your own politik

It’s been a long time since I’ve gotten fired up about politics.

Aside from local skirmishes here and there, such as the tree sitters, I haven’t really given a damn since 2004. Even 2006 and the Dems winning back Congress was sort-of nice-but-not-interesting.

I’ve become complacent in being a Berkeley moderate. Which is to say; relative to students here I fit in quite well. The opposite was true through high school — as many of my old friends can recall, I was the one always turned to for the liberal opinion. I’d get fired up, rail on, and generally try to stand out. In some regards, it’s easy to see where I burned out; I protested war since Jan. ‘03 — and yet it happened, and only now does the majority of the country agree with me. I hoped for change in the 2004 election — and then felt shafted.

Tonight, that’s a bit different.

Since he came onto the scene in 2004, My name’s been a decent barometer to measure Barack Obama’s popularity in the Bay Area. When I introduce myself (”Hi, I’m Barak”) most people will guess it’s Eric-with-a-B, but a growing percentage have tried to remember it through association with Barack Obama. Even Prof. Zakhor last semester would call me “Obama” as sort of a mnemonic. And since he announced his candidacy, that number has been increasing slowly.

Those who’ve talked politics with me in the past may have noted I loosely supported Obama — but until tonight, I held a bit of reservation. I didn’t know if I was ready to throw my full support behind any candidate. The extremist in me liked some of what Ron Paul was saying, the pure mercenary in me liked Edwards (as an electable Democrat) but on the whole, I liked Obama the best — but was uncertain if supporting him was a pipe dream.

Tonight was very interesting, not only in that he won by a (large) 8 point margin, not only because a conservative state voted for an African-American, but most interesting was the fact that nearly twice the number of Democrats came out to vote compared to the caucus in 2004. Twice. Most of them new voters. Pundits will assert, and I largely agree, that he has the youth vote, and a percentage of the female vote; but rarely has anyone been able to convert popularity with those demographics (esp. the youth) into actual votes. The Republicans drew record numbers too, but came almost to half as many Democrats. This is unusual.

So when Obama speaks to the desire we have for change, I’m starting to believe him. When he speaks of hope, I’m starting to believe him. The rabid liberal of my youth, now tempered with some age, is beginning to get excited again.

People have been comparing the “feeling” of the Obama campaign with that of JFK. Thanks to the power of the internet, we can compare JFK’s nomination acceptance speech to Obama’s Iowa Victory Speech tonight. I see sort of what they mean now. You can feel JFK trying to break the stagnation and the fear of the 50s, just as one could say we have fear and division in the 2000s.

In that JFK acceptance speech, the following passage rings out as true today as it was 48 years ago:

Perhaps we could afford a Coolidge following Harding. And perhaps we could afford a Pierce following Fillmore. But after Buchanan this nation needed a Lincoln - after Taft we needed a Wilson - after Hoover we needed Franklin Roosevelt…And after eight years of this Administration, this nation needs a strong creative Democrat in the White House.

For me, that Democrat is Barack Obama.