The Obama campaign has been the most exciting and rewarding experience of my lifetime. If it were a movie script, it would be rejected because it was too corny.
Script: Underdog versus Superpolitician
The first amazing and tender victory in Iowa over impossible odds. Then, when everyone thought it was a slam dunk, the heartbreaking loss in New Hampshire. The draw on Super Tuesday. In order to keep the matches in the next month interesting, Underdog has to be handicapped: superdelegates, a sneaky plan to steel Florida and Michigan, and most important, the polls are unreliable, predicting an Underdog defeat. After 10 overwhelming victories, shouldn’t the audience get bored? Shouldn’t Superpolitician concede? NO! New handicaps: blue color voters, Latinos, 527 PACs.
I have been involved in (mostly losing) political campaigns for a long time – starting 40 years ago canvassing in the Wisconsin primary for Eugene McCarthy. For you kids that are doing this for the first time: enjoy and appreciate this moment. Believe me, there will be nothing to compare with it for the rest of your life. And, it will all be over in less than two weeks. November will be fun, but by then Underdog will be Superhero and there is no contest. And when he is president? Oh! The compromises, the compromises.