Changing Writing About Change

So after Obama was elected I, like many other bloggers I'm sure, wanted to write something about it. It's rare that something so culturally and politically significant happens and even rarer when one event comprises both. But it's been hard to find anything to say that hasn't already been said better.
I guess what I've been thinking about most beyond the event itself is the reaction to the event. My first response (of course) was to link the cheering and exuberance to a movie I love: Newsies. You know that scene where Christian Bale's character comes out after his meeting with the newspaper bigwigs? He whispers the results into a little boy's ear and the little boy yells to the crowd, "We beat 'em!" (the moment happens around 8:20) I've always liked underdog movies, but this one was always especially poignant for me because it was a kid's story about kids making a difference. In the scene where they announce their victory I felt some of the same stirrings of emotion I felt times one hundred on election night. For me, and thousands of other kids, Obama's win felt like victory. Judith Warner addresses this winning feeling very well in her NYT article: "Tears to Remember."
What was also winning was Obama's speech. In her article, Warner mentions the moment when he promised, "To those who would tear the world down: we will defeat you. This is our moment. This is our time." One thing that is significant about this statement is that beyond all the terrorists hiding in caves that this may reference, what it also calls to is the way in which the cynicism and hate in our very own country was tearing the world down. By saying that this is "our moment" Obama seems to suggest to his supporters that by being in his change corner we are now a part of a hope army that is unafraid to have sentimental feelings about our country, feelings that can overthrow our disappointment make our nation what we've always wanted it to be.
These feelings are remarkable for my generation. I was born just after Reagan and have lived only in a Bush-Clinton-Bush world. This has been a world of strategically false politics and scandals that have only further revealed the cynicism of the people in power. Therefore my entire life it has been not only completely acceptable to hate our presidents, but hip.
Warner includes a paraphrase of Wordsworth in her article (poetry he wrote about the French Revolution) that I will put in full here:
"Bliss was it that dawn to be alive / But to be young was very heaven."
According to some recent data, Obama outpolled McCain 66% to 32% with voters under 30. The majority of my friends (and even my dad) canvassed, made phone calls, and donated money to the Obama campain. The fact that all of this seemed to really work increased our faith in Obama and our faith in his politics. The system never seemed to work before (see Gore, Kerry) but his system did. This makes being young heaven right now. Late Generation X'ers were known to be sarcastic and world-weary by age 13, but now all of this angst has been revealed as frustration as opposed to cynicism. When young people the world over raised their fists on November 4th and yelled "We beat 'em!" it was with a sincerity and optimism that has not, in our lifetime, ever connected up with (of all things) politics. The world got us wrong. Obama is our president. And now, this is our moment. This is our time.