Philly Inquirer: Chris Satullo: Obama is better-equipped to lead country through change it craves

[babylonsister]

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/20080422_Chris_Satullo__Obama_is_better-equipped_to_lead_country_through_change_it_craves.html

Chris Satullo: Obama is better-equipped to lead country through change it craves

By Chris Satullo

Inquirer Columnist
Still undecided?

snip//


Now, eight appalling years later, the conservative narrative stands exposed, betrayed and exhausted.

Hillary Clinton, however, takes the Reagan terrain as a given. She assumes national politics must forever be the trench warfare, the nasty game of fragile victories measured in inches, that she knew during her husband's administration. She trumpets her superior experience at that game. But experience can scar as well as teach.

Obama, meanwhile, seeks to create a whole new landscape. He feels the political earth moving. He wants to master the tectonics. He wants to shape the narrative that will replace Reagan's crumbling fairy tale.

Clinton assumes a world where one must work tirelessly to cobble together 51 percent support for a few, long-held goals. Obama envisions a movement that - by unleashing the idealistic, inspiring the apathetic, and summoning the voiceless to the table - will create a 60 percent majority that can make old goals unstoppable and new ones possible.

Can Obama pull this off? Is he The One who can heal divisions, enable dreams, yet head off real threats? Or is he just a grandiose novice, who will wilt amid the inevitable cross fire?

I don't know. Neither do you. But I'd rather risk finding out than settle for more years of barbed wire and pointless carnage on Ronald Reagan's exhausted terrain.

[mwb970]

1. This should be required reading.

Especially for the over-the-top Hillary people on DU. She's great, but Obama is the leader we need. Turns out it really is as simple as that.

[KSinTX]

2. Not particularly thrilled with capitalization of The One nt

[babylonsister]

3. I do think that was solely for emphasis, not any other reason. nt

[MBS]

5. ironic emphasis, I think

This was an excellent editorial: a balanced summary of a contentious primary, illuminating both candidates' strengths and weaknesses in a calm way; and a deft political summary of the last 28 years.
Thanks for posting it.

[OhioChick]

4. I'd rather take my chances

with "The One" instead of having "more of the same."

[DCKit]

6. But "The Same" is comfortable and familiar...

Isn't it always safer to go with what you know? :sarcasm: