The Dow is down. Unemployment is up. Americans are hopeful.

What gives?

President Barack Obama – fresh from the most organized campaign, the most spectacular inauguration, and the most ambitious budget in presidential history – has the optimistic support of 77 percent of Americans, the New York Times recently reported. In spite of a stock market that is hitting 12-year lows, an anemic housing market, and foreign wars with no victory in sight, We the People remain hopeful that our newest commander in chief will successfully rebuild the nation’s economy and restore America’s standing in the world.

Barack Obama on the campaign trail in 2008

We like the idea of a president who makes it his mission to “speak frankly and directly” to the American people. We like the idea of a president who understands the need “for this country to pull together, confront boldly the challenges we face, and take responsibility for our future once more.” We like the idea of a president who recognizes that we live in “extraordinary times” and that “inspiration often comes not from those with the most power or celebrity, but from the dreams and aspirations of Americans who are anything but ordinary.”

From the earliest days of Obama’s presidential campaign, the lanky lawyer from Illinois emphasized that recovering our nation’s economic, educational and diplomatic prowess would not be easy. Creating new, green jobs, restoring faith in the wisdom of Wall Street, and ending a war in Iraq that has cost us trillions of dollars, requires great hopefulness not warranted by the stock ticker and not insured by AIG. Banking bailouts alone will not save us from the next Great Depression. Only hope, backed by national sacrifice, will move us forward.

“In the face of despair, you believe there can be hope,” Obama told those in attendance for his campaign kick-off, pinpointing what makes this nation the greatest nation on earth. “Each and every time, a new generation has risen up and done what’s needed to be done. Today we are called once more – and it is time for our generation to answer that call.” Obama calls on each of us to lead the Obama Revolution. Launched in a frigid February speech in Springfield, Obama’s campaign was not intended to be a momentary reprieve from apathy but rather a call to arms.

Like the Greatest Generation, we have the opportunity – born of necessity – to reclaim the principles upon which our nation was founded nearly two and a half centuries ago. With America’s economic, educational and diplomatic standing on the line, we must seize the opportunity to create millions of new American jobs by injecting billions into clean, green energy, to cure our addiction to foreign oil by forcing Detroit to invest in hybrid vehicles, and to save the exploding cost of private health care by making nationally subsidized health insurance available to all Americans.

Obama’s $3.6 trillion budget for the 2010 fiscal year ambitiously curtails the rampant abuse of the tax code by large corporations and those individuals who make over $250,000 per year. Cutting taxes or extending tax credits for every American who makes less than a quarter of million dollars annually, Obama’s budget puts the greatest financial burden on those who can most afford it. Ending a decade of decadence, the Administration plans to save billions by ending farm subsidies to farms that bring in more than $500,000 in revenue each year and by interring President George W. Bush’s welfare for billionaires along with Bush’s contempt for the middle class.

Although Obama’s visage graces this month’s Vanity Fair, among other magazines, Obama’s economic recovery efforts will be far more permanent. Solving our nation’s economic problems will require our sustained involvement in shaping national, state and local policy. Our generation must do our part in bearing the burdens of troubled markets, domestic turmoil, and international strife. By remaining hopeful, we will make it through this challenging moment in history. By challenging ourselves and our new president to lead “frankly and directly,” we will recover our nation’s legacy of stewardship for our people, our institutions, and our environment.

Let us begin today the process of rebuilding our nation from the ground up by turning our hope into change. Let us unite behind a president committed to making the greatest investment in our economy since President Franklin Delano Roosevelt proposed a New Deal for the American people. When Republicans in the House of Representatives stonewall any proposal by Democrats that would impose tax increases on the rich, let us turn the other cheek. By giving a hand up, not a handout, to those hit hardest by the mortgage crunch, pink slips, and health care premiums, we can overcome our fears and reclaim our dreams.

Our hopefulness, in the face of impossible odds, is what makes us American.

Alan Kennedy-Shaffer is the author, most recently, of “The Obama Revolution.”

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