Mr. President my generation thanks you
Yesterday was a bittersweet day for me as it's the last time I'll ever get to vote for Barack Obama. For a lot of people, that means something. The support of Obama was one of the things that drew my generation together in 2008. I'll never forget after the rather heartbreaking times we had to endure in 2002 and 2004 (especially in my state with the death of Wellstone and his replacement by Norm Coleman) and how glimmers of hope came from 2006 and then Obama's campaign. I'll never forget the people I knew who couldn't care less about politics joining Obama supporting groups on Facebook and pledging support for him, and actually coming through. I'll never forget the announcement at my caucus that Obama had carried 85% of the votes of those present, and crushed turnout records. It was through the roof. And it was at my caucus mostly people like me, in college or just out of it who did it. I'll never forget having to wait in line 2 1/2 hours in 2008 or 1 1/2 hours yesterday to vote, and it all being totally worth it, and being surrounded by all the other people from the supposedly "non-voting" bloc of 20somethings, and knowing that despite the prohibition on discussing it that we were all there to support the same guy and this being enthusiastically confirmed by my neighbor when I returned home to my apartment while she left to go vote, and enthusiastically confirming that's who she was going to vote for as well. I'll never forget the 2008 election returns watching party I went to with a bunch of young folks like myself who mostly just cared about punk shows and were some of the most burnt out and cynical toward politics people the world had seen who just couldn't wait to actually hear Obama's victory speech. Or the party last night at the big hotel with all the party bigwigs...and a huge turnout by young folks as well instead of just some basement kegger.
And because of this man our children will not have to know what life was like before Obamacare, those too young to remember the vivid details of 9/11 most likely never will have their own memory, and we saw an end to the seemingly never ending war in Iraq. And I can assure you, this is going to pay off long past now, Obama has delivered a huge set of Democratic voters FOR LIFE. Just as the Greatest Generation spoke fondly of supporting and voting for FDR, that's what we'll be doing over Obama in 40 years. That's what Obama did with the generation that candidates used to speak of mockingly and assume we were irrelevant because we didn't vote. After some impossible bleak times we were given something to believe in. I hope we can nominate someone fantastic in 2016, and probably will. But I also don't envy how they have such a tough act to follow. To bring inspiration and hope to so many people is unparalleled and something I'm forever grateful for.
= new reply since forum marked as read
