TW: David Broder the curmudgeon from the WaPo (am not much of a fan actually) has covered many presidential races. He finds this one to be the best ever from primaries through the general. If you think about it, this election has had about everything- a background of war, a failed incumbent, economic trauma of epic proportions, continued partisan cultural wars all of this overlaid by candidates with historical resonance Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Sarah Palin and Barack Hussein Obama. It makes the historically close and fiercely fought races of 2000 and 2004 seem almost pedestrian. I would love to see 2012 be far less exciting...
From Broder/WaPo:
"...But the voters -- bless 'em -- ignored the oddsmakers. They were determined to do their own thing -- set the nation on a new course, sharply different from that of George W. Bush. It did not matter much to them that McCain was too old, by conventional standards, to be running or that Obama's mixed-race background broke the historic color line on the presidency.
It was the emergence of these two implausible but impressive candidates that gave 2008 its special stamp. But they prevailed only after fierce struggles...
For decades, I have said that the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon campaign was the best I ever saw. But most of the drama in that contest came after Labor Day. This time, the excitement was generously distributed over a whole year, with moments of genuine humor from Huckabee, a torrent of uninhibited conversation from McCain and Biden, and rare eloquence from Obama and both Clintons. The country faces a choice between two men who both promise the nation a more principled, less partisan leadership."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/31/AR2008103103063.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
No comments:
Post a Comment