Friday, January 04, 2008

Obama Wins Iowa: Why Everyone Has a Reason to Celebrate

Even if your candidate didn't win last night, you have reason to celebrate. We all do.

Barack Obama's stirring victory in Iowa -- down home, folksy, 92 percent white Iowa -- says a lot about America.

Because tonight voters decided that they didn't want to look back. They were warned that a vote for Obama would be like rolling the dice, and they went ahead and rolled the dice -- as if a country exhausted by the last seven years wanted to recapture its youth. Obama's win might not have legs. Hope could give way to fear once again. But, for tonight at least, it holds a mirror up to the face of America, and we can look at ourselves with pride. This is the kind of country America was meant to be, even if you are for Clinton or Edwards -- or even Huckabee or Giuliani.

It's the kind of country we've always imagined ourselves being -- even if in the last seven years we fell horribly short: a young country, an optimistic country, a forward-looking country, a country not afraid to take risks or to dream big.

Continued...

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