This is a blog about communications, and I'm always striving to remind people of the power of words, of language to shape/influence/inspire. At our best, as communicators, this is what we strive for. I think we all remember certain words or stories or phrases that make a difference, so vividly. Politics is often ground central for powerful language, good and bad. Think about "never give up" and "nothing to fear but fear itself" and "morning in America."
I still remember driving through downtown Portland and hearing Maya Angelou read her poem from the 1992 inauguration and feeling chills and going to look up what she said on Prodigy because I wanted to read again what the words were.
Barack Obama gave a heck of a speech tonight. Here's the close. Words matter, for sure.
"This was the moment when we tore down barriers that have divided us for too long; when we rallied people of all parties and ages to a common cause; when we finally gave Americans who have never participated in politics a reason to stand up and to do so." This was the moment when we finally beat back the policies of fear and doubts and cynicism, the politics where we tear each other down instead of lifting this country up.
"Years from now, you'll look back and you'll say that this was the moment, this was the place where America remembered what it means to hope. For many months, we've been teased, even derided for talking about hope. But we always knew that hope is not blind optimism. It's not ignoring the enormity of the tasks ahead or the roadblocks that stand in our path.
"It's not sitting on the sidelines or shirking from a fight. Hope is that thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us if we have the courage to reach for it and to work for it and to fight for it.
"Hope is what I saw in the eyes of the young woman in Cedar Rapids who works the night shift after a full day of college and still can't afford health care for a sister who's ill. A young woman who still believes that this country will give her the chance to live out her dreams.
"Hope is what I heard in the voice of the New Hampshire woman who told me that she hasn't been able to breathe since her nephew left for Iraq. Who still goes to bed each night praying for his safe return.
"Hope is what led a band of colonists to rise up against an empire. What led the greatest of generations to free a continent and heal a nation. What led young women and young men to sit at lunch counters and brave fire hoses and march through Selma and Montgomery for freedom's cause.
"Hope -- hope is what led me here today. With a father from Kenya, a mother from Kansas and a story that could only happen in the United States of America.
"Hope is the bedrock of this nation. The belief that our destiny will not be written for us, but by us, by all those men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is, who have the courage to remake the world as it should be.
"That is what we started here in Iowa and that is the message we can now carry to New Hampshire and beyond.
"The same message we had when we were up and when we were down; the one that can save this country, brick by brick, block by block, calloused hand by calloused hand -- that together, ordinary people can do extraordinary things.
"Because we are not a collection of red states and blue states. We are the United States of America. And in this moment, in this election, we are ready to believe again."
I thought I'd be pretty sick of electioneering by now -- I guess I'll stick around and pay attention now.