The Dawning Of Hope

[babylonsister]

http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/op_ed/hc-curry1026.artoct26,0,4117550.column

The Dawning Of Hope
Obama Poised While McCain Self-Destructs

Bill Curry
October 26, 2008


I've heard it and said it many times. You've heard and said it too: "This is the most important election of our lives." We all say it, but what do we mean?

We mean America's in trouble, not just on the wrong track but off the rails and maybe headed for a cliff. That's the bad news. The good news is we believe that much in our democracy — or else why would any election be important? — and in a candidate, or else this election would have no meaning at all.

The choice of candidates is clear. Barack Obama is relatively inexperienced, as any presidential candidate his age would be. But we've had younger presidents — Bill Clinton, John Kennedy, Teddy Roosevelt — and know that persons of exceptional talent and judgment can prosper in the job, and we along with them.

Obama, the Harvard Law Review president and Clinton, the Rhodes scholar, are the two most intellectually distinguished nominees since Woodrow Wilson. In a campaign that made the Hundred Years' War look like a bathroom break, Obama has shown extraordinary poise, suggesting a temperament to rival FDR's. He is the most charismatic and perhaps the most eloquent politician of his generation.

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Nineteen years ago, I was blessed to be in Berlin as the Wall came down. It was among the most exhilarating experiences of my life, walking among the throngs of window-shoppers as they tasted not only capitalism but freedom for the first time. No one knew exactly what the fall portended but all felt the sense of impending liberation.

In a way this election is like that. America has been victim of a historic political logjam. We don't know everything an Obama administration will bring, only that the logjam will explode and the river of the democracy will flow again. It has been a dismal election at times, but beyond a doubt it is the most important of our lives.


• Bill Curry, former counselor to President Bill Clinton, was the Democratic nominee for governor twice. He can be reached at [email protected].

[Mira]

1. Kicked and I recommend the reading ! Excellent N/T