I missed this ad somehow when it was first making its rounds. Everybody, and especially those who believe Congressman Paul is racist because of the newsletter debacle, needs to see it.

I voted for Barack Obama in 2008. I’m not ashamed of my vote, though I’m not particularly proud of it either. Nothing that the Republicans had done under George W. Bush for the previous eight years led me to believe that they deserved another presidential term. Nothing that John McCain or Sarah Palin said or did changed my mind about that. But it was more than that. I was young and I wanted to believe Obama’s message of “hope” and “change we can believe in.” I was naive, I suppose, and still didn’t understand the way the world worked or what liberty really meant. And besides, he brought tears to my eyes. Did I mention that I was young?

The truth is that although I’ve given up on Obama, the messenger, I haven’t given up on the underlying message. Oh, I don’t mean the class warfare or the left-wing populism. I just mean the hope. And the change we can believe in.

I refuse to believe that hope is for dopes or that change we can believe in won’t happen. But I had started to believe that no political candidate would ever touch upon those ideals within me again. I believed that, that is, until I saw the above ad a few minutes ago. Suddenly, I was reminded of that for which I’ve been hoping and I saw again what real change, change we can believe in, actually looks like. At this moment in our national history, it looks a lot like a graying, rebellious congressman from Texas who was once a young doctor who cared more about his patient’s health than the color of her or her husband’s skin or how much money they had to pay him.

For the first time since the night of November 4, 2008, a political candidate brought tears to my eyes and made me want to fight to see him succeed. I guess I’m still young, after all.