As this is my first diary post, it also feels a bit like that first dance long ago. I just hope I get all the steps right.
By way of brief background to set up this diary, I experienced presidential politics from the trenches in 1976 and again in 1980. I began as a volunteer field staff to Carter in Ohio in January 1976 when he was listed in the Gallup polls as an asterisk. In 1980 I served as the National Director of Administration for the campaign. In between I worked on the White House staff and with the EPA. Now looking back I can see the fabric of those elections much clearer, and today I sense some déjà vu in observing the Obama campaign. This blog is written from that perspective.
There is a certain aspect to the Obama candidacy that brings back memories of the 1976 campaign by Jimmy Carter. In looking back now on those years, I believe that Carter was almost too decent to be President. Obama carries that same sense of decency. It may turn out that Carter was just ahead of his times, as many of my fellow Carterites will claim. It may also turn out that we need that decency now more than ever in our conduct of democracy.
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