The 2008 election just hit me like a fucking freight train.

[Paradoxical]

I was a freshman in college and a first time voter. I was really excited about the future of politics in America.

I may not have had the type of historical perspective that many DUers here possess. But I'd lived nearly all of my teenage years watching Bush destroy this country from the inside out. So I knew what was at stake.

I remember an overwhelming feeling of optimism whenever I saw the debates or participated in rallies. I wore my Obama "Hope" t-shirt with pride as I boarded through campus.

The night he was elected was quite possibly the most exciting night in my life. My entire dorm was huddled around a single old TV in the common room watching the news tally the votes. We all couldn't believe what was happening. We were all witnessing the man we had voted for become president. And he was a Democrat!

I remember that night for at least two things. It was the same night Prop 8 and Prop 102 passed. And I had several debates that evening regarding the significance of such laws.

But there was no debate on the significance of the presidential race. We had won. And change was coming.

I remember January 20, 2009 as I stood in the lobby of the downtown campus. Surrounded by hundreds of my follow students, we all watched the inauguration in true awe. There was absolute silence when he came up to take his oath of office. Not a single person in that lobby made a sound. And we all watched Barack Obama become the 44th President of the United States of America.

I'll never forget that year. It gave me hope. I still do have hope.

Now I look to the 2012 election, and my instinct is to have the same hope and awe as before. I want to feel that optimism again. But there's something missing.

We no longer have an untarnished President with greatness in his future. We have two years of a less than awe inspiring administration. We are seeing the same type of politics as usual.

And it makes me sad. Because I felt that optimism and I want it back. I want this country to be hovering on the edge of redemption. Just like it did on that November evening.

We may still get what we voted for. After all, there's almost two years left in his first term. And I can honestly say that I hope this administration will turn things around. Because I want to feel the same pride I did in 2008 when I marked the line next to Barack Obama/ Joe Biden.

[Major Hogwash]

1. Cheer up. Mitt Romney just got his exploratory committee together.

This is going to be so fucking easy in 2012, I may sleep walk right through it.

[Paradoxical]

2. That's not the point. My point is that I want to vote for optimism and true change.

It will bring me no comfort if I have to vote for Obama simply because he's the lesser of two evils.

[bananas]

3. Welcome to adulthood.

Most people don't vote for someone, they vote against the other guy.

[Javaman]

13. +1. sad but true. nt

[Mnemosyne]

7. My first vote was in 1976 and it was the last vote I ever

made in which I did not have to hold my nose.

I've registered many voters, worked on campaigns and driven people to the polls over the last 32 years. I actually had to force myself to go vote in 2008 and am not sure I can do it again. I'm tired of :banghead:

[FredStembottom]

11. Same year, same story...

I was 18 in '75 and voted in a tiny school-board, park-board type election in that off off year.... I was that excited to vote.

Then '76. Then the roof fell in in '80 - and a lot of nose-holding.

I think a lot of the cheer-leader crowd here on DU just aren't old enough to have ever voted for a real Democrat. That's a nuance I should factor in when their enthusiam for ???? gets me so perplexed.

[Tom Rinaldo]

12. Hope doesn't really die, it just emerges with more caution

I'm 61 now. I accept that most of the time electoral politics will be pragmatic, but still is worth engaging. On somewhat rare occaisions genuine hope rises up in me. It is such a precious thing that I don't want it stomped on needlessly, os I keep it under cover most of the time. But it doesn't die unless you let it.

[sendero]

4. Oh...

.... so we can have 4 more years of NOTHING? I can't wait.

I could have written the OP, I felt the same way when Obama was elected except that I have gone from elation to bitter bitter disappointment. Obama has re-arranged the deck chairs and that is about all.

[loudsue]

9. Now THAT is major hogwash. The corporations are going to make 2012 look like

the storming of the bastille. Every single democrat is going to be TRASHED. What happened in the Wisconsin Supreme court race is EXACTLY what KKKarl Rove, the US Chamber of Commerce, and the Koch Brothers have in store for 2012. Only worse.

We will most likely lose the presidency, and both houses of the legislature. Not to mention state races.

[Name removed]

10. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[hootinholler]

5. The historical perspective makes it worse

Just saying. I'm so there with you, except possibly I wasn't quite as hopeful.

-Hoot

[liberal N proud]

6. We must never give up hope

For once we have given up any hope for improvement, we have nothing.

[lunatica]

8. Your choice now is whether to believe in truth or illusions

Truth hurts more but it's real. And when something is real you can change it.

[apnu]

14. Its like a right of passage

I had a similar experience with Clinton's first run in 1992. This was after years of Regan and Bush destroying the economy and calling my mother a "welfare queen" I've never looked at a picture of St. Ronnie of Raygun and not felt the compulsion to vomit.

And since then, its been a holding my nose routine. Though Obama did spark that old hopefulness that I had in the early 90's and, like Clinton, he's brought me crashing back to earth. I just wish Obama would show some fucking backbone and use the bully pulpit once in a while. Clinton did that. All Obama is doing (intentionally or not, it doesn't matter) is prove the GOP stereotype that Democrats are timid beta-males.

[TBF]

15. I was like you once -

I grew up the daughter of a factory worker in the 70's and idolized folks like Ted Kennedy. I believed in this country, and in the "american dream". I have lived through a lot since then, and came pretty close to realizing that dream (worked hard, married well as they say, and have had a pretty good income along the way - both on my own and with spouse)... but unfortunately along the way most of the icing also came off. A low six-figure income may make you comfortable, but it's not like the wealth of the billionaires. Working high up in companies gives you insight, but mostly at just how greedy capitalism makes folks. And so now I'm middle aged and watching as my country crumbles. The wealth is concentrated in very few hands, the vast amount of workers with little to show for their labors are sucked into the republican party with dreams of "values", and the tax dollars I pay go for killing people overseas - rather than fixing our infrastructure and looking after our most vulnerable.

I've gone from being that dreamer to a realist who is now re-reading Marx as an adult, looking at American history critically, and wondering how we get out of this bizarre science experiment that is capitalism. If we don't we are just going to see more destruction to our planet, destruction to non-wealthy people, over production, and exhaustion of resources. I have children of my own now, they live rather sheltered lives, and I can see them getting to your age and wondering what the hell the adults before them were thinking. Voting is about the last thing on my mind. Sure, go pull the lever for the least repulsive candidate, but please realize that many of us have watched the routine for years only to realize that nothing changes for those of us who aren't holding the most wealth. The only thing I can do now with a clear conscience is fight against the system that is causing all of this. I'm sorry, wish I had something to say that would be easier, but I do wish you well as you sort this all out.

[FLPanhandle]

16. You are now no longer naive about politians

Never, Never, Never believe a politician trying to get themselves elected.

Always look at a campaigning politician with the most cynical viewpoint you can muster. Even then they'll usually be a bit worse than you can imagine.