I was not watching when Obama burst onto the scene at the 2004 Democratic National Convention to speak what to this day are probably his most famous words. Addressing those “who would seek to divide us,” Obama declared, “there is not a liberal America and a conservative America, there is the United States of America! There is not a Black America, and a white America and Latino America, and Asian America, there’s the United States of America!”

But going back and watching this speech as a politically disenchanted 20-year-old on the eve of Obama’s presidential run moved me toward believing in politics again. Revisiting this moment on CNN’s YouTube channel as I write this article, I note the top-ranked comment left only a year ago was from a man named Lucas: “I’m a Republican, but this speech made me proud to be an American. I wish our country was united again.”

I was a liberal Democrat when I worked as a canvasser for the Obama campaign in 2008. Years later, I would shock my Democratic friends and family by becoming a Republican and running for Congress – only to shock my new Republican supporters when I told them I still believed in the Obama vision of hope and change.

But going door to door in 2008, I met many Republicans and John McCain voters who felt the same way.