Yes We Do!

Do we live in a country where change is incremental?
Yes we do!
Do we live in a country where hopes are often dashed?
Yes we do!
Having a better world for our children is a nice idea, but we have to be realistic, don't we?
Yes we do!

This is the mindset that Barack Obama is campaigning against. The parental imperative. We must protect our children from the awful things that are lurking about waiting to cause them harm, whether it is putting plastic plugs in electrical sockets, or keeping terrorists from creating havoc. This is the charge of our government.

We also are a nation of doers. Most any conversation will include "So, what do you do?" or "What did you do last night?"--this is also part of our social fabric. Quantity not quality is often how people measure their worth. When I was a counselor, how many people I saw was more important to my bosses than how many people I helped. In the bean-counting that takes place in America, we often mistake quantity for quality.

Politics has been the bastion of quantity: how many earmarks did you get your district, how many dollars went to defense, how much support do you have on this bill, what do the polls say?

But Barack Obama offers us a different view. He offers us the opportunity to close the gap of those things that keep us apart and to work together on the hard issues: health care, poverty, environmental issues, energy, and so on. He does it the way that Franklin Roosevelt did it, and Abraham Lincoln did it, and the founding fathers did it--words that lead to action.

Because, in the end, it is quality of change that matters. If we have a universal health care program that leads to a decline in care, who really benefits? If we have an immigration policy that pits workers against workers and decreases the quality of goods or services, who wins?

Hillary Clinton offers the parental, pragmatic view. Rust belt cities are built on pragmatism-- on account of supporting factories that are closing down faster than expanding. If we move ahead even incrementally, that is good enough. If we settle for less than the best possible outcome, hey, at least we tried. Politics is the art of the pragmatic after all.

Still, if you listened to the wrap-up speeches the other night's primaries, which world would you want to be a part of? I grew up in the world of Ohio pragmatism where each time a factory closed down, expectations declined with it. That was the world I chose to leave, believing that it was a place where I would constantly, in the words of Tennessee Ernie Ford, "owe my soul to the company store."

I don't expect that everything that Obama talks about will instantly come to fruition, after all we would be in a learning curve. But if hope backed by government resources and people power is what he is offering, bring on the 21st Century version of the "New Deal." Do we need change? Yes we do!