I just received this letter to the editor for the blog. Thank you Mr. Osborne and welcome to the Pennsylvania version of Iowa.
John
Dear Editor:
The campaign of Barack Obama has excited a whole new generation of previously disinterested young Americans. And though this swelling involvement of youth should set Democratic Party members singing “Happy Days Are Here Again, a few older members seem averse to joining with them and instead expect these young people to temper their idealism and switch allegiance to a candidate of their elders’ choosing.
This wave of change is not going to happen if the incipient enthusiasm of these young people is squelched; the bulk of the newly involved will drift into the dead center of an apathetic public that has little faith in any political party’s capacity to set this nation on a path that bodes a more promising and inclusive future for working and middle class, and destitute Americans.
Before any of us good old Democrats let this happen, best we remember John F. Kennedy’s inaugural charge to the American people of his time: “Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans.”
The only experience that means much of anything to these young people is the thrill and sense of accomplishment that has come to them from being involved in this inspirational campaign to bring real change to what has become vested-interests business in Washington.
The nationwide campaigns of Obama and Clinton are respectively the largest, most complex, resource consuming, people motivating, and open-ended efforts over which either one of them has ever before presided. Obama’s has been an inspirational model of good governance; Clinton’s is a fractious mess that has desperately resorted to openly smearing her opponent and anonymously spreading innuendo.
How come Clinton’s highly touted experience did not make a difference from day one and has now prompted her to mire the Democratic campaign in the dirt?
Sam Osborne
West Branch, IA 52358
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