Yes, We Can

I've been watching this video in a loop for the last 24 hours. I've been an Obama supporter since the beginning, and this video only solidifies in my heart my mind the spirit of what his campaign is about. Obama's concession speech from New Hampshire seems like an unlikely foundation for a song, but the Black Eyed Peas' will.i.am has managed to take those beautiful words and create a mash up that really brings home what this election is about.

In my ten years as an eligible voter I have been offered one mediocre candidate after another. I've been asked time and time again, election after election, to settle for what is most expedient; to stomach the candidate who is least awful. I have never been asked to dream. I have never been moved. I have never believed.

"We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics, they will only grow louder and more dissonant. We've been asked to pause for a reality check. We've been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope.

"But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope."

I hear those words and I am so overwhelmed with hope - hope that maybe things can get better, that maybe this country can be pulled back from the precipice from which it has been hanging - all I can do is cry.

And hope.

I've never been so ready to cast a ballot in my life. I hope that, for once, we really can make a difference for the better. I hope that, for once, maybe we will get it right. And when I doubt, when I wonder if any of this can really be done, I listen to those beautiful words again.

Yes, we can.