The Change Campaign

Barack Obama has hit an American nerve with the word, "change."

It started in the speeches the night of the Iowa caucuses. He had used the word before, of course, but not as a candidate acknowledging a caucus victory that gave his words new prominence, new credibility, new promise.

In the days since, the word has taken off. The media is offering up complete reports about the sudden significance of the word "change" to the presidential campaign. No longer is Hillary the campaign's VIP. Over the weekend, Obama shot ahead of her in the New Hampshire polls. He is achieving, as a presidential candidate, invaluable name identification based on that one word. As soon as they can, his campaign managers should start distributing blue campaign buttons, and on the button that word: "Change." Anyone seeing it would know instantly which candidate it represented.

It is working so well because the country is so far behind. I remember feeling such an indifference to the 2006 mid-term elections because it didn't make that much difference whether Republicans lost control of Congress to the Democrats. After six years of George W. Bush leadership, I felt like a spectator in a stadium, watching the Bush Administration vs. the Nation. It was like the nation was behind, 100-0, at the beginning of the fourth quarter, there was no mercy rule, and nobody could leave until the fat lady sings. If Republicans lost control, the final score, when Bush was finally carried off the field in 2008, might be 150-14.

Surely a non-Republican Congress could scratch out a couple of scores in two years, but most of the drives wouldn’t get inside the 40-yard line, against an opponent that knows how to use the rules so well.

But who cares? What good are 14 points in the last quarter of a game that was over at the half? In the Congressional locker room, what will the coach say? “Folks, you did your best.” Well, rah rah rah. The stories in the morning papers, when the gun finally sounds in 2008, will be about which nation is bloodied the worst, Iraq or America.

I am just an American, sitting in the stands, rooting for a country that is behind 100-0 with still at least half a quarter to go. You think I'm ready for change? Barack Obama does. People in the stands are so ready for change that last week they started to cheer. Sen. Obama, brother, you have hit our button. The main kind of experience we want in a candidate is the experience of change.

In the months before Iowa, he kept talking about hope, but shoot, who cares about hope, behind 100-0, in a game that was over at the half? Now he starts talking about change, and hey, our hopes are going up. Change may be as futile as hope, in the long run. I'm not sure there is a candidate available in this country who in a single term can repair the gashes made by an expert eight-year assault on the nation's balances of power.

But it's only getting elected that matters at this point, and "change" is exactly the right word. When the other candidates see the clout it brings to Obama, it may get them to stop talking about themselves, and start thinking about us. Get those buttons out there, Obama managers.