My own experience in this world causes me to reject the opening of Andrew Sullivan’s endorsement of Obama, but I am foursquare behind much that follows, especially his closing:
I had almost given up hope, and he helped restore it. That is what is stirring out there; and although you are welcome to mock me for it, I remain unashamed. As someone once said, in the unlikely story of America, there is never anything false about hope. Obama, moreover, seems to bring out the best in people, and the calmest, and the sanest. He seems to me to have a blend of Midwestern good sense, an intuitive understanding of the developing world that is as much our future now as theirs’, an analyst’s mind and a poet’s tongue. He is human. He is flawed. He will make mistakes. His passivity and ambiguity are sometimes weaknesses as well as strengths.
But there is something about his rise that is also supremely American, a reminder of why so many of us love this country so passionately and are filled with such grief at what has been done to it and in its name. I endorse Barack Obama because I will not give up on America, because I believe in America, and in her constitution and decency and character and strength.
I had hoped, at some point in these closing campaign days, to write up and explain my transition from Obama-skeptic and Hillary-voter in the primary to a full and genuine supporter of Barack Obama. But here we are, and I need to get on the road so I can go put in some final hours for the Obama campaign. Actions will have to substitute for words, at the moment. I’m okay with that.
