Beyond Cynicism.

• Author: Conniff, Ruth
• Position: Political Eye - Viewpoint essay

We took our even- and five-year-old daughters to the polls on the morning of Election Day. Both proudly wore their "I voted" stickers to school. There was a lot of excitement and optimism bubbling on the playground among the under-eight set.

Our kids and their friends are huge Obama fans. A few weeks ago, when the neighborhood volunteers came by, I turned down an Obama yard sign. As a journalist, I'm leery of boosterism. Not my kids. They grabbed the sign I didn't put up and organized a spontaneous march through the neighborhood.

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It occurred to me then: If Obama wins, my kids will love the President. It's a completely unfamiliar idea. Cynicism about politics is the atmosphere I've lived in all my life. I'm not planning on going gaga myself. But I do intend to curb the cynicism at home. There is something to that remark of Michelle Obama's, replayed as a major gaffe, about feeling proud of her country for the first time in her adult life.

I hesitate over most displays of patriotism. I see my kids being socialized by their teachers and peers with the Pledge of Allegiance and the Girl Scout pledge. There is so much dark news about our country they don't know yet. Seven- and five-year-olds are natural idealists. They are didactic environmentalists, animal lovers, savers of the planet. My daughter wrote a song about ending the war in Iraq and probably expects it to happen forthwith. I am not so sanguine. But I am not about to rain on her parade.

This election is historic--not because Obama is going to lead us to the promised land. But because so many people feel that they can actually change the direction of our country.

The left is so accustomed to being out of power that cynical habits of mind are hard to break. Except for a handful of progressives in Congress and statehouses, most progressives don't tangle much with policy. The expectation that we will have no effect whatsoever on our government makes it easy to lean back in our chairs and throw spit wads.

If McCain had won, there would be no problem for the cynics.

But with Obama, there are actual progressives wing to shape policy. Our country's relationship with the rest of the world is changed. And so are our hopes for the future.

"It's like one of us ran for President and won," a fair trade activist friend of mine said the other day. "I'm putting David Axelrod's picture right up there next to FDR." This was no protest candidacy, like Nader's or Kucinich's. Obama ran...