On April 19th, 2007, I, for the first time in 13 months, set foot on American soil. I planned it like this on purpose, to travel for a year, experience the world, volunteer in third world countries, grow as a human being, then return just as the political season was getting heated up. It was less than nine months until the Iowa Caucuses.
On November 2nd, 2004, I, like many of us here, was devastated. Another four years of George W Bush? My idealism and my innate belief in my own ability to change the world had taken a serious beating, and the floodgates were open leading to the dark waters of cynicism.
Yet, the very next day, as people began to face the truth, I faced reality in the eye and made a vow. That day, I wrote this:
This is horrible. Yesterday I felt like everyone was angry alongside me. Today, though, that number has shrunken dramatically. How? Yet not so surprising. But this election has ignited a fire inside of me – in 2008 this will not happen again because I will be actively involved and actively working to ensure it.
I feel – more powerfully today than even before the election – that I can make a difference.
Now, with four years of experience behind me, 2008 was here. I was ready to go, and three weeks later, I was zipping down I-70 towards Chicago, on my way to Camp Obama. I’d found my candidate – Barack Obama – I saw in him the hope and potential to move America past the failures of the past.
