Like most other observers, I have for some time attributed Sen. Obama’s advantage in the polls largely to outside factors – the military action in Iraq, the financial crisis, America’s falling out with most of the rest of the world, the tarnished Republican brand, etc. The majority of voters want change, and Sen. Obama has assumed the mantle of change, which is a lot easier when you’re not actually in the President’s Party. Bring with that a fresh new face going up against someone who has been in Washington too long and most analysts will tell you that you pretty much see the whole picture of why Obama is all but a lock to win this election. They’re wrong.

The real story of this election – and just about any Presidential election – is that Americans want to vote for the optimist. For decades, Americans have been faced with clear choices in Presidential elections between one candidate who comes off as an optimist and another who, well, doesn’t. I’ll let those who are older than I speak to elections before 1980, but I’ll start with that one.

Americans had an affection for President Carter. He was, to the extent that anyone who becomes President can be, a man of the people. He served in the military and was a peanut farmer, actually engaged in the labor of the business, and a teacher. Those are adult jobs that not many Presidents of late have had. By 1980, though, Americans realized that they had elected a good man for the wrong job. President Carter had simply gotten himself in over his head.

Enter Gov. Ronald Reagan. When Gov. Reagan came along, he brought with him his acting ability, which had an uncanny authenticity to it, as though the parts he had played – my personal favorite being that of George Gipp – had been tailored to the actor, not the other way around. With inflation going through the roof, the hostage crisis in Iran, and the Soviets anxious to take advantage of the seemingly dire situation in the United States, Gov. Reagan came along with a simple, “We’re good enough to overcome this, and we will” attitude. Perhaps most importantly, the ‘we’ in that statement was not the government, but the American people. President Reagan effectively showed that he had faith in the American people. That faith in the American people won him a landslide victory and eventually won the Cold War for America.

Four years later, Democrats nominated a guy who said he had to raise taxes because the government just couldn’t sustain its programs without it. Once again, the choice was clear. Americans could choose between a candidate who had such faith in them that he wanted the government to get out of their way and a candidate who had so little faith in them that he openly stated that they needed the government to lead them. Once again, optimism won the day.

In 1988, Vice President Bush ran for President Reagan’s third term. He spoke clearly and candidly about peace through strength, and portrayed a shared philosophy of limited government with President Reagan. He said that the American way of life, as the American people had made it, was better than the enemy, and uttered the now-infamous phrase of freedom: “Read my lips: No new taxes.” His opponent didn’t share Bush’s exuberance over American success in the Cold War, and to listen to him, America was no better than the communists. Once again, praise for and faith in the American people won the day.

During his first term in office, President Bush did many good things, not the least of which was successfully leading the world in the removal of Iraqi forces from Kuwait. Unfortunately, though, he broke his promise to the American people and once again put government in the way. He tried unsuccessfully to talk in Washington-speak of why it was necessary, but he abandoned the principle that had won the previous three elections. Gov. Clinton reminded Americans of this. What’s more, the man from Hope represented just that. He connected with people and made the case more that he would fight with people than for them. He was one of them. He had overcome a difficult childhood to rise to a Presidential candidate and then nominee. Love him or hate him, President Clinton believed in the American dream because he had lived it. He was the optimist in that campaign and Americans elected him because of it.

Four years later, Republicans decided to nominate the man whose turn it was. Regardless of anything he did afterwards, Sen. Bob Dole was the epitome of the grumpy old man. In spite of the anti-freedom policy decisions of President Clinton’s first term, he still maintained the image of the candidate of hope. He connected with the people, and continued to project faith in the American people more than the government, going so far as to utter the phrase, “The era of big government is over.” Now Bob Dole’s Presidential campaign was the first time I ever volunteered in politics, but if someone asked me who the optimist in the race was, I’d have been lying if I said that it was my candidate. Through all his scandals, President Clinton, perhaps because of his own ability to overcome anything, maintained a persona of optimism.

In 2000, Al Gore ran probably the worst campaign in American history. Things were going well, or at least that was true by all appearances at the time of the election, yet rather than run in President Clinton’s slipstream, he started talking about what was wrong with America rather than what was right about it. To be sure, appearing to be an optimist standing next to Al Gore is no tough task, yet then-Gov. Bush capitalized on it, returning to President Reagan’s mantra of “The American people are capable of great things when you get the government out of the way.” Because he didn’t express it quite as eloquently or genuinely as Presidents Clinton or Reagan, he only barely eked out a victory, but it was a victory nonetheless.

When President Bush ran for reelection, Sen. Kerry ran an almost entirely negative campaign. He didn’t run a campaign based on America’s ability to do better, but rather a campaign of just how bad the situation was. President Bush, who was still – and, to a dwindling minority, still is – the President of “I hear you. The country hears you, and the people who did this are going to hear from all of us real soon.” President Bush was mad as Hell, but took that anger and channeled it in such as way as to return to the 1980 theme of “We’re good enough to overcome this, and we will.” While not a blowout, the 2004 election once again gave the victory to the optimist rather than the pessimist.

Now in 2008, Barack Obama is saying, “Yes we can.” People are buying it. For all of the bandwidth that has been taken up here making the case that Obama is an elitist, which I agree is the case, the majority of people just don’t believe it. It’s not going to sell and I can assure you that that mantra has not made and will not make a dent in the polls. Sen. McCain, whom I respect for his military service but that’s about it, is the grumpy old man just as Dole was in 1996. His experience, his service, and his views won’t win him this election even if people agree with him more than they agree with Sen. Obama.

The critical element in this Presidential campaign, as with Presidential campaigns before, is not policy or demographics or the overall political situation, but optimism. Barack Obama is not leading because he is the candidate of change. He is leading because he supported by the very same cockeyed optimists who supported Presidents Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush.

I’m not thrilled that Barack Obama is going to win this election. Heck, I wouldn’t be thrilled if Sen. McCain won it either. Even so, there are two important lessons. First, in the future, it is essential that we nominate Presidential candidates of hope, not the guy who’s turn it is, the policy wonk, or the one with the best personal story. Second, and this is the best part, even in as much as Obama’s performance, and, to a large extent, Clinton’s, have been acts, America is still a country of cockeyed optimists. If nothing else – and it probably will be nothing else in a few weeks – that is something that we should all be happy about.