The first time I ever cast a ballot, it was for Barack Obama. It was during the Florida primary elections, just after my 18th birthday. The dispute over whether the vote would count assured me as I pressed the button on the touch-screen that I was making absolutely no difference in who would lead the country and the world for the next four years.

But I wanted my vote to make a difference. That is why several months later, in November, I skipped a class and spent an inordinate amount of money for a college kid to send my ballot by overnight mail. I needed to vote for Obama. I thought that if he won, he would be my neighbor and a fellow freshman in Washington, the center of the world.

I had gotten to know Obama well during the campaign. His web site acted as a social network, creating an infrastructure of individual responsibility for phone-banking or canvassing.

Like many of my classmates, I joined an Obama Facebook group and listed him under my ‘‘political views'' in my profile. Did having images announcing support for Obama next to ones of love for The Office garner him any votes or donations? Well, maybe it did merely by means of exposure. I can't recall a full day in which I did not connect to the Internet (and to Facebook) at least once. Being a member of the Internet generation (which, really, who can define anymore?) meant that most of my political activity did take place online.

On election night, the Georgetown University College Democrats hosted a watch party in a student center on campus filled with students in blue T-shirts watching the returns come in on a huge screen. When Obama began his acceptance speech and thanked David Plouffe, who led possibly the most viral and grass-rootsy national campaign in history, I called out, ‘‘I got e-mails from you!'' and everyone near me laughed because they had, too.

David Plouffe was often the most frequent sender in my Gmail inbox and made it easy to donate money or time to the campaign. Even if I had been old enough to participate in a previous election, I don't think I would be able to name another presidential campaign manager. After the speech, we ran to the White House in the rain, documenting every second with pictures and videos to be posted online and tagged for history.

The instant gratification of the Internet extended to Obama updates, which both provided more information and fed the Obama cult of personality. This would not have been an issue if during election seasons every American looked at the major issues analytically and apolitically to decide which candidates chose solutions that they would have chosen themselves, and voted accordingly. But not everyone can do that. I'm not going to pretend I did, or pretend that I can understand the intricacies of the problems that face our new president.

I was a convert to the cult in November 2006, when I saw him at the Miami Book Fair International, and I am proud to have "told you so'' rights to his candidacy, if not his victory.

I try to keep in mind that Obama is not a panacea, but a man leading a government that was never meant to focus around a single office. If he is skewered in Congress or the press, it can be a good thing, keeping government slow and deliberate.

Obviously, it's better for the public to vote with their minds. The thing is, if they vote with their hearts, they're still voting. Whether people depend on reason or intuition at the polls, Obama still gets a majority.

The difference is that voting with your mind is more satisfying. John Stuart Mill's voice still echoes today. As my political and social thought teacher last semester put it, Mill thought that "mere franchise'' was a "caricature of democracy." A real democracy is one with a "robust civic life'' in which people stay informed of issues, discuss them and participate in public life. The vote is a culmination of politics as a whole, and not its main outlet.

So I would like to speak to those Americans (and I think they are a small group) who voted for Obama because they wanted to vote against the Republican Party (or just Sarah Palin) or because there was a "D'' next to his name: Thank you for casting your ballots. But you missed out on the best part, a union of heart and mind in the voting booth. That was especially true among us first-timers.

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