IMG_0937 Originally uploaded by Oxford County Dems.
I don't know these people, but running across this photo more-or-less at random reinforced an idea I've been developing as I watch the campaigns this election season: the enthusiasm of people in common cause against eight years of provincial, militaristic double-talk seems to promise more than a revitalized electorate. It seems to promise a collective that is more than the sum of its parts.
I am sensitive to the swipe Christopher Buckley made in his now famous Daily Beast column:
"Obama has in him -- I think, despite his sometimes airy-fairy 'We are the people we have been waiting for' silly rhetoric -- the potential to be a good, perhaps even great leader."
But there is more than a kernel of power in this notion. How many of these neighborhood team leaders (this story and this one) will start to run for local office as progressives? In how many ways will regular folks start to feel empowered to take back their rights and freedoms, to welcome diversity openly, to keep the nation's policy dialogue reality-centered, not ideology-centered?
There's a further point, a piece of this that the right-wing conservatives haven't gotten yet, and it's the principal reason McCain/Palin's negative campaign has fallen flat: driven by no mere "Country First" slogan, progressives today who are supporting Obama feel of a piece with America. We feel not only empowered, but feel the country itself is renewed and empowered through our vigor.
It's not that Obama's policies or promises don't matter -- they do, though he will undoubtedly break some, as all new Presidents must -- it's that all of us are linked in a vast mutual promise, and as more people come on board, its power grows geometrically.
The smiles in this picture testify to the life in this movement. And when the McCain campaign calls Obama names and sows the seeds of racism and violence, the chunk of the American population taking it personally is only growing.
I am not stupid. My neighbor is not mean, cruel, or fearful. A Muslim can be my brother, a brutha can be my comrade. We believe in America both beautiful and strong, and cynically tearing us down tears down America.
Leave it all on the road.