I have said for quite a long time that the thing that I bemoan in this political system, the partisanship, has evolved in a very unhealthy way. When I first started in political activism, in 1975, we all, Democrats, Republicans, and Independents, were trying to accomplish the same thing. We were all trying to keep America progressing towards a better society. We just had different ideas as to how to get there. By and large, there was a least a respect for one another, and everyone understood that arriving at consensus was how we would get to where we had to go. A certain respect was there. But beginning with the Reagan Revolution, and the Gingrich years, the respect disappeared. The right began to demonize progressives as "liberals" turning that word into a perjorative. The left responded by characterizing everyone to the right of center as some kind of neanderthals. The result, all these elections later, is what Susan Eisenhower so accurately describes.

I am not unmindful of the excesses of the left from the late '60's forward. Nor am I ignoring what was wrong with the system, and the abuses of it, in those days. Admittedly my description is over simplified. But the important piece that Susan Eisenhower, and Caroline Kennedy before her, are hitting is that we are killing the most important part of the American Dream ......... and that is hope. That is being inspired. That is young people wanting to pursue something greater and more noble than self interest. My generation, the generation that wanted to change the world, has missed the mark and slid back into a hedonistic mire that has brought us to the edge of environmental, social, and economic collapse. But out of that mire has come a young man, filled with the message of inspiration, tempered in the fires of community organizing, and ready to blaze the trail towards possibilities.

I sincerely wanted John Edwards to be the candidate, and I feel his presence in this campaign. But the more I listen to this wonderful young man, the more I let his rhetoric and zeal filter into my being, I find myself remembering the last man that made me feel this way. His name was Bobby Kennedy. It was during a time that saw the people I most admired murdered.... JFK, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X..... it was a time that saw us in the mire of Vietnam . Imagine growing up during this time. One minute you are a kid in the 1950's, when all things seemed possible. Then the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Kennedy assassination, Martin Luther King's assassination, student riots, Vietnam, ....... it was like having your world come apart in front of you. Then emerges this young man, brother of a slain President ... and you have hope. You can see the care for all people, you can see the possibilities, you begin to aspire to noble ideals ...... then ..... in a horrid moment in a kitchen in L.A..... the final nail was driven in the coffin of hope and idealism. My generation began the long, slow decline into materialism and hedonism that has led us to this moment, when the fire has died to the last few embers in the ash.

Wow .... what a rambling diatribe, and I apologize for it, but writing it has made me realize what we have here. I want my generation to realize that we have an opportunity. We have the chance to resurrect, in a new generation, a more savvy generation, the hope we all felt in that time long ago. We have a chance to restore the necessary balance in the political process, and have it gel around a charismatic leader with a vision of "dreams that never were, and ask why not".

Thanks Susan, thanks Caroline. See you at the polls.

All the best,

Mick