I believe that most people my age, those within the tail end of a Generation X, are generally jaded on politics. We have left the era of statesmen, perhaps as early as 1968, and instead have only politicians to choose from. Their words and messages are carefully crafted by a team of speech writers, handlers, and managers. You wonder how much of their words and views these candidates actually generate themselves. Or are they just coached to delivery the party mantra with practiced poise and delivery.

I’ve seen two distinct camps from Gen X in their approach to politics. The first are those that inherited the political beliefs of their parents, but with a fervor and nationalism that borders on zealotry. These are the folks that I think embrace a competitive and ugly partisanship. In politics, there are winners and losers and the rules by which we play get less tangible with each cycle. It’s a sum zero game and in truth the end does justify the means. Perhaps its too many movies that have been themed from Watergate or Iran-Contra where the government acts independent of moral conscience and oversight that has grown a generation of free wheeling cowboys with guns firing into the air.

The other group, which I find myself more and more apart of, is the cynical, apathetic critic. If I’m only voting to keep my vote away from the worst candidate, then hasn’t the entire process broken down completely? With the emphasis of special interest groups and lobbyists combined with the disillusionment of the electoral system – my vote really doesn’t matter. How can I Rock the Vote when my vote is conveniently bleached down into 7 electorates, or worse yet, not counted at all. How much difference can an administration make considering the dealing, compromises, and infernal pacts it takes to get elected?

For my own part, I grew up to dirt-poor, Catholic, Republican parents. I always thought that we should have been Democrat because we were so pathetically poor AND Catholic, though the two are nearly synonymous. My maniac father was Army and Oklahoman, so Republican it was. I didn’t say they were sane. Duty over common sense.

When I first reached an age of political awareness, I was probably six or seven years old. We were living in Seaside, CA near Fort Ord and I found myself regurgitating my parents’ comments on Star Wars (SDI) to an obviously Democratically raised child. My parents were pro-Reagan, swept in perhaps with the glitz and religious fervor of the Religious Right. Once we had each exhausted our pre-formulated points of contention and counter argument we returned to playing.

I believe that its my Catholic roots and childhood poverty that pushed me away from conservatism and Republicanism. But at the same time, I found myself intensely skeptical of political parties – true to the closing words of George Washington. Its easier to see them as media-leeching cabals with a carefully formulated group policy on what is most electable rather than the strong convictions of an individual paragon, such as a Roosevelt or a Wilson.

The specter of Richard Nixon looming over US politics has never disappeared. The idea of Us vs. Them. I’ve read that between Nixon and Reagan the career bureaucrat was turned from a values-driven patriot to an over-worked, burned out wage slave. In Oklahoma, the government (and the banks) were something to be watched with a careful eye and a loaded shotgun.

I consider myself party-less. I am strongly against voting on religious beliefs. I have no interest voting in a minister to take the Oval Office. When you mix religion with statecraft you get wars, long, bloody wars. Check the record, I’m right on this one. I’ll manage my own morality, thank you.

With that really as my sole criteria, the last election I was hoping for John McCain. I’d already seen the brilliance of W. and his cronies and wasn’t very impressed with Kerry Munster. I’ve gotten off of the McCain chuck wagon because I can see him walking the tightrope of personal ideas vs. towing the party line. The more he advocates the policies put forward by the Bush II administration, the more I become distrustful. Plus, the guy is getting senile. So I wandered back towards the gray middle.

You see its easier to be a skeptic, to be a pessimist cloaked as a realist. But with Barack Obama I feel myself being drawn in on a deeper level. The words of change, hope, and internationalism ring a bell with me. I’m fighting the urge to become interested, to become involved, because once you let yourself care, then you can get hurt. When you put your faith in people, particularly politicians, then their failures become less water cooler humor and more of a personal betrayal. I can already hear myself making a rationale for when that disappointment comes, “Well, at least we elected a soulless politico that broke the racial barrier.”

I can see and feel the growing tide of hope on a young presidential candidate with the hopes of a generation and a people on his shoulders. It makes me understand the Kennedy’s, both JF and Robert, and what their words of promise and tragically unfulfilled potential did to the innocence of America.

I truly wish I could put my confidence and belief in a leader, a president of flawed men. Someone to lead us away from the back room, big business dealings of Cheney and his sidekick W. After watching his acceptance speech for the Democratic nomination and him espousing the virtues and values that I hold sacred, Obama may be that political King Arthur. Someone to pull forth that civic pride from my heart of stone.

And yet as I march into the gates of New Camelot bent on changing the world, I’m worried. Worried about the let down that will inevitably come, the broken promises, the half-truths and scandals. Or maybe worse the dream will end in the same way as Jack, Bobby, or King.

Whether this optimism is fault or faith, I find myself hopeful regardless. Not in the we won and you didn’t game, but rather that there might be a chance to unravel this mess and put us back on course towards that city on a hill, a lighthouse.