The One That Started It All: Barack Obama at the 2004 DNC Convention

In honor of our new president, I thought I'd post the one that started it all: Barack Obama's 2004 Democratic National Convention Speech.

I remember just moving to New York and watching the convention on my tiny TV in my new apartment in Washington Heights. I had no idea who he was. But as I watched his speech, I knew I was seeing something special. I called about 3 people afterward and asked if they just saw what I saw. No one had. "This guy will be president real soon," I told them. I didn't expect it 4 years later, but I knew it would happen.

It is still my favorite speech of his, and it's probably my favorite speech of all-time. Why? "The hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too." Yes, I am a skinny kid with a funny name as well. I had grown up feeling that there was a White America and my America, which would always been inferior in the eyes of our society. But this was the first time, someone-- a politician nonetheless-- spoke directly to the America I grew up in and made me believe in that old American myth that anything was possible in this country. Amen to that.