A little over a year ago, the day after the Iowa caucuses, I wrote an essay called “From Iowa to the Inaugural.” But the real story of this election dates back to 1968. This was an election steeped in symbolism and parallel. Rare is it in American history that the analogies drawn and metaphors painted by politicians are as poingnant or as rich as those created by Barack Obama.

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Posted at 25 January 09 at 22.01 in Politics, Culture, Obama 08, Books

It is ten degrees out in Iowa, and snowy. One year ago, I was here to help Barack Obama win the caucus. This year, I’m just home. It is the first time I have been back in this bedroom since I hung an Obama doorhanger here on January 3. It is hard to believe it has been a year.

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Posted at 23 December 08 at 15.12 in Politics, Obama 08

In the end, THE math did not prove to be all that useful for Mr. Rove. Here we are, two years later, and the math is not looking much better for the President’s party. Democrats are poised to win anywhere between four and then Senate seats and between ten to 30 House seats. And Republicans will be very hard-pressed to win the White House.

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Posted at 21 June 08 at 16.06 in Politics, Obama 08

One of the first blogs on this Internet was about how miserable Bob Gates was going to be as Secretary of Defense. I couldn’t have been more wrong. It is a surprise that I think we ought to celebrate by keeping him on in 2009. Even if Barack Obama is the next President of the United States.

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Posted at 20 June 08 at 15.06 in Politics, Obama 08

Earlier this week, Senator Barack Obama unveiled a program that did more than pay tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He unveiled a program that does nothing short of taking up his great legacy.

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Posted at 05 April 08 at 07.04 in Politics, Obama 08

King’s dream has lived on. But with his death, the faith of a generation of men and women who came of age under Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s promise of a government that could care not just for the rich, but for all members of our society, began to falter. Forty years ago, an assassin’s bullet did more than kill a great leader, an American icon. It horribly wounded a movement.

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Posted at 04 April 08 at 09.04 in Politics, Culture, Obama 08

Today, we are again at a crossroads. We again have a country that needs to be healed. And we have again in our politics a leader who is firmly dedicated to party and principle while simultaneously determined to work with all Americans to heal our nation’s wounds.

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Posted at 26 March 08 at 10.03 in Obama 08, Books

Though John Adams cannot be credited with sticking around for Jefferson’s inaugural, at the time it did not seem impossible that he might have chosen to join with his supporters in violent revolution against Jefferson’s leadership. The fact that he did not ensured that the idea that is America – the seed of our nation – would be given the opportunity to grow and succeed.

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Posted at 20 March 08 at 20.03 in Obama 08, Books