I am only 40. I have never known anything like this.

[FlyingSquirrel]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4320502#4320544

I have never been so mesmerized that I'd spend lots of time looking at pictures of the candidate, just drinking them in.

It feels weird, because up till now I have never been all that interested in the presidential candidate himself - there's always been at least some distrust in the back of my mind, some small amount of cynicism that won't go away.

Who remembers feeling like this? Was it in '68, the year I was born, when RFK was running?

[LisaLynne]

1. I am about your age and I was just thinking the same thing!

I was looking at those pictures and feeling all warm and fuzzy inside and it struck me how I have never had that reaction to a candidate before.

[hedgehog]

2. It's the same feeling, that this election isn't only about him, but about us!

And just like back then, either you get it or you don't!

On edit - all the music is something I've never seen before!

[Faygo Kid]

3. Bobby, yes. I was very excited about George McGovern. But this is best.

I cast my first presidential ballot for George McGovern.

But this time, my guy is gonna win.

[Joyce78]

9. I cast my first presidential ballot for George McGovern.

Finally, 21 and old enough to vote. Couldn't vote in 1968 ... old enough to be drafted but not old enough to vote and decide my future.

[tilsammans]

23. Another first vote for McGovern . . .

. . . and I have no regrets.

:dem:

[onethatcares]

4. well Rocky, it's like this

Every once in a great while a real statesman comes out of the population. Happened with JFK and RFK, also Martin Luther King. It so rattles those that understand and see it that they get feelings like yours. You are not alone.

This is history in the making, stay awake and participate in it.

Peace.:toast:

[DainBramaged]

5. JFK, you KNEW when you heard him speak, and when you saw him,

it reinforced your belief that he could do anything.

[trotsky]

6. In '92, when Clinton was running, a picture was taken that showed

he still wore a plain old Timex Ironman digital watch. That was close to the same feeling - I knew right there Clinton was real, and he knew what the real world was like. Obama is that feeling x10.

[143tbone]

7. I used to feel this way about JFK and his whole family.

And I felt this way about John, John (that's what we called him) when he grew up. What an amazingly graceful and beautiful man he was. He probably would have run for president if he had lived. I think they knew that and I think that he just might have been killed for it.Maybe.
Because he had that power of attraction as did his father, his uncle and now Obama. So that when it came time to actually run there would have been no stopping the freight train.It's a thing they called charisma. I never really knew what that was until I had Bobby Kennedy on a flight one day. Wow. It's like an aura that surrounds certain people. A glow. Not many people have it.

[whistle]

8. For me it was 1960 and JFK campaigning against Richard Nixon

...I was 19. The Twenty-sixth Amendment (Amendment XXVI) of the United States Constitution that was to standardize the voting age to 18 was still eleven years away. But times were tough we were in a deep recession. I was married with an infant son working in my dad's family business which was struggling like so many others. My young wife was trying to find work to help save some money as I had a goal to advance my education and perhaps begin college in a few years. The cold war was threatening to become hot somewhere in the world, but Vietnam was not even known on main street, certainly not to my generation. But JFK offered a vision and when he won and gave his inauguration speech in January 1961, I had hope and optimism that there would be a better life for myself and my family.

[Native]

10. With Clinton it was simple logic - our economy sucked & here was a guy with a background in

economics - a Rhodes Scholar to boot. Didn't take a rocket scientist to know his resume was tailor made for our time. As a child, I actually said to my parents (while watching Nixon's inauguration on TV), "I don't like that man. I think he's a bad person." It was visceral, and it was dead on. When I first laid eyes on a photo of Obama, my immediate thought was, this man is going to be our next president (even expressed that sentiment in writing to several people). It was a thought that came to me without any contemplation or knowledge of the man (I just knew). I don't have any strong emotional feelings about Obama - it goes way beyond that - it is a simple affirmation that is almost palpable & that has been with me from the beginning. Kind of an "it is what it is" kind of thing.

[Mike 03]

11. Same here. This is so different from anything I've known before.

I am just a bit older than you. This is a whole new experience for me, feeling so much passion for a Presidential candidate.

I've "liked" many candidates: Clinton, Gore (definitely!), Kerry. But Obama is something I have never experienced before. When he talks, I find myself crying sometimes, for reasons I can't explain.

If Barack Obama loses this election, my heart will break.

[tanyev]

12. For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country.

I agree with that quote 100%.

[FlyingSquirrel]

13. Me too. n/t

[TahitiNut]

14. I remember JFK very well. This is better. (It amazes me to say so.)

Here's my favorite photo from that set ....



This is a "nuclear family"! Each of them is precious ... and it's obvious to anyone with eyes to see and a heart to feel that they are JOINED at the heart. These are people who love and respect each other as individuals. They're TOGETHER even when standing apart. I once observed that I could tell who were the happily married couples at a large reception or party, especially if they were in different parts of the room. There's something about people whose relationship has become 'rooted' that you can just see in the body language and occasional quick glances. This family shows all of that.

[Dangerously Amused]

15. Same here. Exactly.

Good to know I am not alone.

:hug:

[riley3]

16. I was very young when JFK was president, but my family adored him. For me

I realized that just hearing Senator Obama's voice makes me feel hopeful and safe. He is a very special person, and Senator Biden is no slouch either:)

[Arugula Latte]

17. I'm 42 -- same thing.

I've never been enamored of a Democratic presidential candidate before.

[phusion]

18. I turned 18 the year that Gore "lost" to the courts...

and that year was also the awakening of my political "self", so to speak. I'm beyond excited!

[FatDave]

19. Indeed.

At 38, this is the first candidate I've ever been excited about. The first one who's actually inspired me. Clinton was good, but no Obama. But I'm used to voting for Dukaki and Kerrys.

[LWolf]

20. I'm 48,

and there has not been a major party presidential candidate that inspired me in the least since I started voting.

:shrug:

[kath]

21. People were mesmerized by Bobby. For those who haven't seen it, check out this Vanity Fair article,

from this past June:
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/06/rfk_excerpt200806?currentPage=7
The Last Good Campaign
excerpt:

Rene Carpenter watched the students in the front rows. Their faces shone, and they opened their mouths in unison, shouting, “Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!”

Hays Gorey, of Time, called the electricity between Kennedy and the K.S.U. students “real and rare” and said that “a good part of it is John F. Kennedy’s, of course, but John Kennedy … himself couldn’t be so passionate, and couldn’t set off such sparks.”

Kevin Rochat was close to weeping because Kennedy was so direct and honest. He kept telling himself, My God! He’s saying exactly what I’ve been thinking!

Jim Slattery, who would later be elected to Congress from Kansas, reread the K.S.U. speech during the second Iraq war and decided it was so powerful “because Kennedy was talking about what was right!”

Kennedy concluded by saying, “Our country is in danger: not just from foreign enemies; but above all, from our own misguided policies—and what they can do to the nation that Thomas Jefferson once said was the last, great hope of mankind. There is a contest on, not for the rule of America but for the heart of America. In these next eight months we are going to decide what this country will stand for—and what kind of men we are.”

He raised his fist in the air so it resembled the revolutionary symbol on posters hanging in student rooms that year, promised “a new America,” and the hall erupted in cheers and thunderous applause.

As he started to leave, waves of students rushed the platform, knocking over chairs and raising more dust. They grabbed at him, stroking his hair and ripping his shirtsleeves. Herb Schmertz was left with a lifelong phobia of crowds. University officials opened a path to a rear exit, but Kennedy waved them off and waded into the crowd. Photographer Stanley Tretick, of Look magazine, watched the mêlée and shouted, “This is Kansas, fucking Kansas! He’s going all the fucking way!”

“You Can Hear the Fabric Ripping”
One reporter would call the Landon lecture the first indication that “we were embarking on something unlike anything we had ever experienced.” Cries of “Holy shit!” and “What the hell are we in for?” echoed through the press bus as it pulled away from the campus. But once the excitement had ebbed, John J. Lindsay, of Newsweek, said, “Listen, I’m not sure we’re going to like how this turns out.”

To help promote Kennedy’s second speech of the day, at the University of Kansas, the campaign had planted an editorial in the school’s newspaper criticizing its students for being “conservative and apathetic.” This had the desired effect of swelling the audience at the Allen Fieldhouse to 19,000, one of the largest in university history. Kennedy’s reception was even more raucous than at Kansas State. Witnesses spoke of “roaring students” and “raw emotion let loose.” Reporter Jack Newfield, from The Village Voice, described it as “emotion beyond reason, cheering until saliva ran, clapping until hands hurt,” and New York Post columnist Jimmy Breslin believed it indicated that “the day when a politician can survive with slogans may be gone.”

[MadrasT]

22. I'm 43. Me too.

:hug:

I jokingly tell people I haven't been this excited about a candidate since JFK... :bounce: