The little guy was no more than two, running up and down the aisle of the plane with his dad close behind. We were mid-flight between Denver and Portland when he stopped right in front of me. I don't know why he stopped. I didn’t have a stitch of Obama gear on, although I was returning from the Democratic National Convention, but he did. A sweet little Obama t-shirt and it surprised me.

“Oh!”

“Bama!” he cried. “High five!”

O - ba - ma. A funny name, says the candidate, but one that easily pops on the lips of two-year-olds. It's a phenomenon, unlike any we have seen before. In most election cycles many adults don't know, much less toddlers, who is running for president until October. This time even the youngest Americans understand that Obama is not a Buzz Lightyear action figure that they gleefully find in their morning cereal. They will tell you, "Obama is going to be our president!" Older children like Cedar, age 9, registers voters for Obama in Eugene, Katie, age 7, makes phone calls in Corpus Christi, and Glen, age 10, canvasses every Saturday after his soccer game in Albuquerque. These youngsters are not drawn to Obama because he gives a good speech. These kids can tell you what Obama wants to do for the country and what they want him to do for them.

At the Obama office opening in Eugene, my son, who plays football at Oregon State, lifts Cedar up high above his head. Near the ceiling on the bright red "Wall of Hope," Cedar stamps his handprint and writes in white paint, "Better schools!" Down lower, the adults write their own hopes: peace, end global warming, progress, health care, job security, family, unity, Darfur. It is the message at the very bottom that helps me begin to make sense of it all. "Change doesn't happen from the top down,” a volunteer writes, “it happens from the bottom up." ~ Barack Obama

It isn't real, say the cynics. He gives a great speech, but he can't win, they say. Yet, the college students who have abandoned their studies to work on the Obama campaign aren't demonstrating excessive idealism. They aren't playing guitar and reciting the lines from Aeschylus and Tennyson that Bobby Kennedy introduced to my generation. They've put together the best ground game in American political history. Whether the polls have been up or down, whether the message has been off or on, whether the fundraising has been record breaking or not, the ground game keeps moving toward the goal on November 4.

I watched Barack Obama’s keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic convention. I watched his announcement speech at the old statehouse in Springfield, Illinois on Lincoln's birthday, February 10, 2007. The reference to Lincoln, an inexperienced, one-term Congressman was not veiled. Obama, a first term U.S. Senator, clearly intended to paint the contrast between other candidates’ experience and his judgment. I watched and did nothing.

Obama was intriguing. He wasn't asking me to be angry about the state of the nation or to belittle his opponents. In an eloquent way he was simply asking me to hope. The cynics found that humorous, but they weren't listening to what came after his appeal. He asked us to step beyond the bitterness and anger that has divided our country. He asked us to think beyond what was probable and work for what was possible. "Hope," he said, "is not blind optimism."

Campaigns are for young people with no attachments and no possessions. More than 20 years ago I worked on presidential campaigns, starting as a field organizer and then moving on to advance, fundraising and media. It's a grueling schedule where you might dream that you are in one city and actually wake up in another. Despite Obama's appeal, I knew that my ability to respond was limited.

I am attached to my family, my work and a chronic case of breast cancer that keeps me from diving into stress-filled projects. For me, the stress of a campaign was the probable, but then on January 4, 2008, I was confronted with the possible.

January 4, Iowa

Out of the cold and snow came record numbers of citizens to attend caucuses held in homes, schools and churches. In 99 Iowa counties, people stood together in a room or a corner of a room to choose the next leader of the free world. As Barack Obama became the front runner in the chase for the Democratic nomination for the presidency, I watched with my children and a few of their friends. They were focused, excited and, just like Cedar, Katie and Glen, they knew what they wanted.

We watched the results on television from a sunlit porch in Hawaii. It was the first holiday in two years that my family had shared together. College football is our nation’s holiday entertainment, except for those who, like my son, play the game. For him, for our family, it’s work and missed time together. So, after the Emerald Bowl, we escaped for a belated Christmas/New Year’s week. Jake’s friend and teammate, Dwight came along. I watched these kids who live in a different, more tolerant world than I did at their age. Their hunger for a world with less confrontation and more resolution is palpable.

They shy away from conflict, yet seek involvement. The political war-of-words is of no interest. They choose to spend time at the Relief Nursery for abused toddlers or coaching soccer and basketball. During the past three spring breaks, they have organized student trips to Louisiana to build homes for Katrina evacuees.

When CNN confirmed the projections and it was clear that Obama had won the Iowa Caucus, we did a little victory dance. We talked for hours about what could happen if people stopped shouting and listened, if character became more important than skin color, if Obama were elected.

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