Ted Sorensen, John F Kennedy’s former speechwriter, believes Obama has found the means to unite America. “His victory speech was inspirational,” he said. “It was especially appealing to young people regardless of race and religion, just like JFK.” He added witheringly: “I’ve never met an independent or Republican who favours Mrs Clinton.”
Kennedy was far more hawkish than the antiIraq war Obama on foreign policy, but they both faced the same obstacles to election. “They were both said to be too young and were from the wrong demographic,” Sorensen said – Kennedy, 43, was an Irish Roman Catholic. However, Sorensen believes that given the chance, Americans will always respond to an appeal to their nobility of spirit after being reared on the philosophy of the founding fathers and Martin Luther King.
“One of Obama’s greatest themes is his appeal to what Abraham Lincoln called the ‘better angels of ourselves’.”
Eugene Robinson made similar points in today's column, No Longer Unimaginable, without beating the Kennedy analogy to a pulp:
It was one of those moments that give you goose bumps -- the cheering crowd, the waving placards, the candidate and his family looking Kennedyesque on the occasion of a stunning victory. Barack Obama took the stage Thursday night in Des Moines and proclaimed his vindication of hope: "They said this day would never come. They said our sights were set too high."
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The change that Obama represents is largely generational, and this fact was evident throughout the Iowa campaign. Obama's army of young volunteers used the tools and skills of the Information Age to master the arcane caucus process. The Obama campaign offered a simple, consistent message. By contrast, Hillary Clinton's constantly shifting wardrobe of slogans and John Edwards's class-conscious rhetoric seemed dated.
So we might actually have a uniter rather than an uniter? What I am seeing - so far - with Obama is intelligence and wit and experience with the wider world. George W. Bush never had these qualities. Now, I think Bill Richardson has all the experience Hilary touts herself as having but Richardson has not shown that x factor, that bit of oomph that propels Obama. Which might make an Obama/Richardson ticket look good right now.
The biggest shock of the day comes from George Will:
Barack Obama, who might be mercifully closing the Clinton parenthesis in presidential history, is refreshingly cerebral amid this recrudescence of the paranoid style in American politics. He is the un-Edwards and un-Huckabee -- an adult aiming to reform the real world rather than an adolescent fantasizing mock-heroic "fights" against fictitious villains in a left-wing cartoon version of this country.
This just makes my jaw drop.
I did not watch the Democratic debate last night. No kids, the wife and I went out to eat at The Three Pigs (I had a great T-bone and grilled shrimp that made me happy to miss the wait at Texas Road House) and so on. So much for the excuses, the New York Times has a video of the debate here.
Just for the record, I really hate the "new Dylan" moniker - even if it is Bruce Springsteen. Obama is not the second coming of JFK any more than Springsteen was the second coming of Bob Dylan. The best parts of all of them can be traced further back than whoever they were supposed to be supplanting.
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