WHAT do you think is the critical issue in this election season? Personally, I blow hot and cold. I used to think the key issue facing the nation was “hope.” But now I wonder if perhaps it isn’t “change.” It was only last year that I bought The Audacity of Hope by this fellow called Barack Obama. How audacious hope seemed back then! How bold, how courageous! But now, a mere twelve months later, hope seems cheap, glib, easy.
“There has been a lot of talk in this campaign about the politics of hope,” said this guy in Iowa the other day. “But understand this: The politics of hope doesn’t mean hoping that things come easy.” It turned out to be the same Barack Obama who’d been going on about the audacity of hope. But now he’s fine-tuned his campaign, and he’s running on “change.”





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