Change and hope should be prepositional

I have bad news for all of us. Barack Obama is going to be sworn in as president one week from today (that's not the bad news), and guess what - there's a good chance he won't change the world. Even with a Democratic congress and a victory in November current presidents would most likely call a "mandate," there's a good chance we're so far fucked that to extricate our country from all the issues facing us might not take only four, or eight, years.

Here's my main concern: for all the excitement Obama garnered, for all the amazing speeches, for all the policy he and his team have been leaking over the past few weeks (I don't know that any president-elect has gone this far in revealing plans prior to inaguration, but not the point), Obama still ran on the rather vague dual platform of "hope" and "change."

Why does this bother me? Because "hope" and "change" are not complete thoughts. This minor disobedience in grammar functions doesn't necessarily bother me from a syntax standpoint, but more so in the lack of actual content. We have to have hope in or for something, and we need change to be from one thing to another. Hope in. Hope for. Change to. As much as we all love and are happy with Obama, I need the blanks filled in a little better than we got during the campaign.

So, over the next week, as nearly-president Obama keeps on trucking, keeps on appointing Clintons to Positions of Influence, keeps on tempering previously made statements, I'll keep on waiting to know exactly how Obama actually is going to unfuck us. Of course, he does have four years. Which is a long time. My exact words when Bush was sworn in in 2001: "It's only four years. How bad could it be?"

I have higher hopes for Barack Obama.

See what I did there?