Post-primary regret: Confessions of a Hillary traitor

Just hours after I confidently cast my ballot in the auditorium of Logan Elementary School for Hillary Clinton, the misgivings began. I blame CNN and DirectTV and all the Gods of Television because, without them I wouldn't have caught the full impact of Barack Obama's Super Tuesday speech.

In my adulthood, the most inspirational president I've known is President Clinton. And that's not saying much. He wasn't a bad president, but not particularly notable -- and while Hillary would surely be a fine president, it's very unlikely that she will be a great one. But Obama could.

I shivered a few times of during Obama's "Our Time Has Come" speech in Chicago Tuesday night. Not from the startling SoCal cold, but with presentiment: This was it. He is it. Obama's is the next president, and anyone who hadn't voted for him that day was just slow to catch on. Oh my. Oh my. What I had I done. What had all of us done.

I suddenly remembered a point some 3 1/2 years when I was watching the Democratic Convention where Kerry was nominated. A young man running for U.S. Senate who was about to win his race, a young man I had never heard, took the podium for one of the endless speeches that goes along with these periodic events. It was Obama, and the room I was in suddenly fell preternaturally quiet as the handsome, as-yet-unknown man enthralled us with his melodious voice, his passion, his presence. He was there like no one else that night. "He's going to be president one day," someone said. I nodded: of course it was true.

That initial impression was lost in the crushing cynicism of the ensuing months. I think I forgot I could be inspired by a politician, since my experience has been so limited. Bill Clinton, who's the only president I've voted for in the two decades I've been eligible to do so, was a fine president, but will not be remembered as great. Indeed, his one memorable quote associated with his eight years of presidency, and it's surely the one he's least proud of: "I did not have sex with that woman." (To give you an idea of how much staying power an infamous quote has, even my 19-year-old students knowingly titter when I use that as an example of a quotable quote.) It only gets worse with the Bush Boys "Read my lips" and "Heck of a job, Brownie." As Gertrude Stein once said of Oakland, there's not much there there.

There's a reason that people keep comparing Obama to JFK, and why even the remaining political Kennedys are drawn to him; he has that very same je ne sais quois that made people remember JFK fondly, even though, as far as I can tell, he didn't actually do much. But he sure could stir the masses; Obama can -- does -- too.

I still think Hillary Clinton is fabulous, and that she's suffered from the deep well of sexism still entrenched in this country. But I think I was wrong when I picked Hillary. If Obama can spark inspiration in an old cynic like me to, imagine what he's going to go to America.

"We are the one's we've been waiting for" Obama said that night. And he's the one we've been waiting for to take us there.