Tuesday was a great day -- if you are a young progressive. One of us, maybe a bit long in the tooth to be a young progressive -- was elected President of the United States.

I am an African American and to say that I thought that this would never happen in my lifetime is an understatement. I wasn't sure that Philly would elected a second Black mayor, or that Pennsylvania would elect a Philadelphia mayor governor, so this is almost revolutionary.

I don't want to rehash all of the good feelings that I have, as tempting as that is to do. But Obama's victory is a victory for community organizers everywhere, and that's good for Philly politics.

For a long time, if you were active in community organizing, people assumed that you were doing it to get elected to office -- which in many instances was true. But people hated politicians. They viewed them as self centered, corrupt, ego maniacs who asked every cycle for votes and money and did not produce. (Comparisons to pimps were not out of bounds.)

Every so often, in the public's view, politicians would promise to fix things they couldn't fix, while they used the power of their office to enrich their family and engorge themselves at the public's expense. And the one's who didn't where simply to incompetent or stupid to figure how to do so.

Meanwhile, public services sucked. Buildings fell down, neighborhoods crumbled, drug dealers took over the streets, you weren't safe in your homes, schools stopped teaching everything but crime and profanity, trash littered the streets, every building that didn't have a mural had graffiti, violent crime got more violent, kids were not safe on the streets, SEPTA was to be avoided, banks were replaced with check cashing places, friends and family members who lived in Jersey or outside of the City scoffed at those who dared live in the City, and politicians seemed to do nothing. (I remember a Philadelphia magazine article that said that a greater number of suburbanites would rather fight Mike Tyson than live in Center City. That's when Mike Tyson was knocking people out right and left.)

In fairness, this was a pretty accurate view of some politicians and life in Philly for a while. Of course, Philly has always had tightly knit neighborhoods with a history of community organizing. First among immigrant groups, and then as a result of population density.

Here's the problem, because people viewed community organizing as a way to get elected (which is true), people then viewed community organizers as politicians in waiting. And since people distrusted politicians, their view of community organizers was also bad.

And that is still true today. Of course many institutions are to blame. The Press for being in bed with politicians, but lauding them as rakes (Read: The DN's way too positive suck up coverage of Fumo all those years). Unions and the Party for rewarding loyalty over competence. Businesses for rewarding loyalty over competence. And the general public for checking out.

What Barack Obama does (and it's been happening for a while), is justify to the public that community organizing can be done for good. Good things can happen. It encourages all of us to get involved and take back our communities. I don't mean that term in the sense it is used in neighborhoods were drug dealers outnumber beat cops 20-1. I mean it in the sense of ordinary people getting back involved in public institutions, and demanding that they perform.

It means that giving a crap about your community is back in vogue for the average person who outsourced it to hacks.

Obama's win also means that community organizing will be considered noble again. Top law graduates will go to public service institutions not big law firms. (The economy helps make that decision.) Teachers will look again at inner city schools, and so on.

Will it all change overnight. No. But finally the general public has a role model for how it can all work.

For those of us who have labored against a system that is either corrupt or indifferent, it's refreshing to see that the pendulum has swung back, and smart, hardworking people are lauding being active in their communities.

And that is the great news for Philadelphia. Not that the federal government will write checks to cover the excesses of local politicians, but that average people will get back involved in their communities. If that is something people care about, Philly has a great chance to reverse the brain drain of talent, as younger, educated folks look to be a part of communities, not picket fences shut off from their neighbors. Philly is the kind of place where where you live is a part of who you are. If being connected to your community can return to being something noble, that's great news for the City.

Of course all the problems don't change overnight, but it is a good thing to have some hope that things will change, rather than despair being convinced that they'll only get worse.

Think about it, 10 years ago, would anyone have believed, that the Phillies would win the World Series, Nutter would be Mayor, Rendell would be Governor, and an African American who ran a presidential campaign highlighting his work as a community organizer would be President of the United States.

Now, we can.