Well, the Clinton express seems to have suffered a delay in Iowa. Barack Obama is an interesting political phenomenon. His inter-racial identity makes him a symbolic blank screen onto which Americans can project their perennial post-cultural fantasies. The early Republic was filled with claims that America transcended Old World divisions and conflicts. Obama helps us continue in our national love of “beyondism,” as in beyond partisanship, beyond racisim, beyond division, and etc. That’s what his campaign means when it trumpets him as offering “hope.” He also represents a vote to move beyond the Baby Boomers and the Sixties. Of all his beyonds, it’s the one I find most hopeful.
