May the best globe win
This weekend, Hillary (today) and Bill Richardson (tomorrow) will join Edwards, Obama, Kucinich, Vilsack, Biden, and Dodd in pursuit of the Democratic nomination for president. (Did I forget anyone?)
A woman, a man of Latino ethnicity, a man of African ethnicity, a Southerner, two Northerners, three Midwesterners, a Southwesterner, numerous centrists, a clear leftist. A talented and successful diplomat with international cred. A judiciary expert. A man engaged in humanitarian relief. Two governors, four Senators, an ex-Senator, a Congressman, all who have clear talents they will bring to the country’s service.
And there’s room for more: Kerry, Clark, Gore, perhaps. Maybe more. Whether or not any can be critiqued for campaign tactics, all three are men of enormous integrity who have served and continue to serve our country well. (How odd that the three most established military vets remain out of the contest to date… a coincidence?)
Gore, the visionary fighting to protect us from a certain foe that imperils the entire globe. Clark, who led the last successful effort to limit an ethnic cleansing. Kerry, the lightning rod to every redneck who still can’t get over Vietnam…. or the Civil War, whose principled prosecutorial approach has tangled with the worst excesses of corrupt Presidents in every major foreign policy debacle of the past 40-plus years.
No, I don’t view any of those three as an embarrassment. Principled leadership should not be easily scoffed at, nor abandoned in times like these.
Certainly, I have some quarrels with some in this field, more for choices they’ve made in office that proved flawed than for campaign errors. But overall, can our country point to another time when any major party put forth such a group so reflective of the melting pot that is America?
Yes, to be fully representative, even more diversity would be great. There ought to be as many women as men in this field, just to get close to that ideal. (And I’ll welcome that day when it comes).
Yet before the nitpicking and forceful arguments begin to weed out these folks in pursuit of (I hope) the best representative of the interests of the most humans, I just thought it important to note that it really warms my heart to see such a great cross-sample emerge from the Democratic ranks.
It’s a good base to build on. I applaud, whistling, and shouting “More! More!”
