We took our kids to the polls this morning. Both got to cast ballots and proudly wore their "I voted" stickers to school. There was a lot of excitement and optimism bubbling on the playground among the under-eight set.

Our kids and their friends are huge Obama fans. A few weeks ago, when the neighborhood volunteers came by, I turned down an Obama yard sign. As a journalist I'm leery of boosterism. Not my kids. They grabbed the sign I didn't put up and organized a spontaneous march through the neighborhood.

It occurred to me last night: If Obama wins, my kids will love the President. It's a completely unfamiliar idea. Cynicism about politics is the atmosphere I've lived in all my life. This election marks a major change. Not that I'm planning on going gaga myself. But, if Obama is elected, I do intend to curb the cynicism at home. There is something to that remark of Michelle Obama's, replayed as a major gaffe, about feeling proud of her country for the first time in her adult life. I hesitate over most displays of patriotism as my kids are socialized by their teachers and peers--the pledge of allegiance, the girl scout pledge. There is so much dark news about our country they don't know yet. Seven and five year olds are natural idealists. They are didactic environmentalists, animal lovers, savers of the planet. They are clear on where they stand on the war. My daughter wrote a song about ending the war in Iraq, and probably expects it to happen forthwith. I am not so sanguine. But I am not about to rain on her parade. This election is historic--not because Obama is going to lead us to the promised land. But because people, especially young people, are galvanized to change the direction of our country.

The left is so accustomed to being out of power that cynical habits of mind are hard to break. Except for a handful of progressives in Congress and state houses, most progressives don't tangle much with policy. The expectation that we will have no effect whatsoever on our government makes it easy to lean back in our chairs and throw spit wads.

If McCain wins, there will be no problem for the cynics.

But if Obama wins, there will be actual progressives vying to shape policy. Our country's relationship with the rest of the world will change overnight.

"It's like one of us ran for president," a fair trade activist friend of mine said the other day. "I'm putting David Axelrod's picture right up there next to FDR." Axelrod, Obama, and the rest of the campaign did not put up a protest candidacy, like Nader or Kucinich. They ran to win. As a pundit on CNN said the other day, "This isn't just playing. This isn't Jesse Jackson."

Despite the relationships with Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright (both of whom seem utterly familiar and unscary to American progressives), despite the monumental issue of racism, despite the Clinton machine and the cross-ticket appeal of John McCain (although Obama benefitted some from McCain's haplessness), Obama has done what no one expected.

It will change the way we see ourselves, the way our country is seen by others, and the way my kids grow up.

In that way it feels like a very fateful day.