Last night, as I was winding down after the debate, my life partner and I somehow ended up into a discussion about John F. Kennedy. She remembers the day he was shot (I wasn't yet born) and said "maybe that's why I've always been so negative about politics."
I started thinking about it:
Lyndon Johnson -- the draft, Vietnam, Bobby Kennedy/MLK assasinations
Richard Nixon -- Vietnam, Watergate.
Gerald Ford -- Nixon pardon, WIN!
Jimmy Carter -- Stagflation, the Iranian hostage crisis.
Ronald Reagan -- Recession, deficits, Grenada.
George H. W. Bush -- The "good" Saddam war, Recession
Bill Clinton -- Failed health care plan, '94 Republicans, Lewinsky
George W. Bush -- Don't get me started
So maybe we shouldn't be surprised that so many Americans have grown cynical about politics. She's voted in recent elections because I asked her to, but never with any enthusiasm. This year is different.
She just loves Barack. She watches debates, she sends me links to polls. ("See how good he's doing!" or "Should I be worried?") She even watched snippets of the conventions.
I've lived and breathed politics most of my life. My degree is in political science. I went to law school with delusions of political ambitions. And not until last night did I truly start to understand why so many people don't bother to vote, why so many claim "it doesn't make any difference, they're all the same." As I listened to her describe the shock and disappointment of Kennedy's death, and started going through the presidents and politics of the last 45 years, I started to "get it."
Barack has found the key to reaching out to these people. Despite the right wing blathering, he's the most genuine candidate of either party in years. He's a realist who nevertheless believes in the power of government, who believes in market capitalism but is nevertheless smart enough to know where it fails, who believes in diplomacy yet recognizes that the only way to deal with certain type of "evil" is to obliterate it.
And he makes no excuses for what he believes. He can't be goaded by either the left or the right into "politically expedient" positions. He's no slave to the watered down ideologies that have come to dominate our politics. He's the grown up in the room not playing the games of the last forty years.
And that's why he's going to win. Barack Obama knows how to fix government, he knows how to make it work. And unlike his opponent, he doesn't need to keep making the claim. When you watch him, you just know -- yes, he can.