Gary Hart: Obama and the Courage of our Convictions

[understandinglife]

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Senator Obama is a man of principle. He is committed to restoring a sense of national community to America. He believes in restoring our security alliances through active diplomacy and engaging those who disagree with us in constructive dialogue. He restates the requirement that we all give something back to America, to become engaged in the public arena, in the national interest. And, most important, he is the walking embodiment of equality and justice.

Already the Obama candidacy has sent a powerful message around a watching world: The torch has been passed to a new generation of American leaders, and we don't care what color it is.

As one who has struggled throughout a lifetime for restoration of idealism to American politics, I can only smile, and perhaps shed a tear of happiness, that our time may have come.

This is a new day in America. Let's call it hope.

Yes, something very special happened yesterday.

[understandinglife]

1. JR Baitz: "Something lifted: the national anhedonia that has descended on so many despairing ...

... Americans under Bush has ever so slightly lessened this morning. And one noticed the despair all the more because of how novel it feels to have hope. The gray and weighed cloud of shame and disappointment in our leadership lifted. Just a bit. And the quiet, deeply scarring, utterly exhausting seven-year burden of being disgusted by a ruinous and corrupt administration quieted briefly last night in Iowa. Because one man, Barack Obama, dared to presume that he had could change the country. And told us that there was nothing we could not do. And so many people agreed.

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... -- all I could think of was that the rest of the world was watching this moment too, amazed and surprised just like us. In Paris and London, Berlin and Rio, and Montreal. Let alone in Africa, Aisa, and in the Middle East. Were they, like me, also remembering how very much they used to admire about this country and all that it stands for? Were they watching, and feeling the wild, romantic populist streak that -- shock of shocks - still lives on here in this almost ruined nation? I think so.

Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robbie-baitz/the-shock-of-the-new-oba_b_79744.html

As do I.

[Faryn Balyncd]

2. Interesting - - Gary Hart is one of the Bloomberg/Nunn/Hagel/Robb bipartisan "National Unity" group:

Gary Hart's primary recent interest has been opposing the Iraq War specifically (and neocon/imperial foreign policy in general).

He is one of the dozen or so Democrats & disaffected Republicans who have stated they may consider supporting an independent candidacy, (perhaps Bloomberg/Nunn or Bloomberg/Hagel), depending on the party candidates. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/29/AR2007122901476_pf.html

It looks like at least some of this group may end up endorsing the Democratic ticket if Obama keeps winning.

Where do the others, particulary the Republican dissenters, stand on this?

Hagel, in particular, has worked with & spoken highly of Obama.

Danforth (an ordained Episcopal priest & former Republican Senator who abruptly resigned his appointment as UN ambassador about the administration began pushing for more confrontational stance in the UN regarding Syria & Iran) has written passionately against the influence of the religious right in "Faith and Politics: How the 'Moral Values' Debate Divides America and How to Move Forward Together." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/27/AR2006092701708.html

Some have suggested that Bloomberg, et al, would find disappointment in HRC's defeat in Iowa, as that would defuse the incentive for a Bloomberg independent candidacy.

But Bloomberg insists he would rather not run, and Hart's article would suggest that the bipartisan group which includes several prominent former Republican office-holders may end up endorsing a Democratic ticket headed by Obama.




With Obama picking up the support of Dennis Kucinich in Iowa, as well as Dodd & Biden, Obama's candidacy looks more and more like our winning chemistry in 2006, where we received the overwhelming support of independents and other disaffected former GOP voters.

Has anyone seen statements by any of the others of the Bloomberg group (Nunn, Robb, Boren, Brock, Danforth, Whitman, Cohen, Dixon, Graham, Leach, Eisenhower, Abshire, Perkins)?