As I write this, Barack Obama and John McCain have just completed their final debate, and the country is a few short days away from a historic election. Of course, I'm doing all that I can for my candidate. But whether he wins or loses, Barack Obama has ushered in a new era of American politics with a limitless vision of a better future that will endure for many years to come. Through his candidacy, Obama has provided a glimpse of a stronger, better, fairer America, where change comes from the bottom up, where we all come together to meet the great challenges of our time. He has inspired millions of new voters of all ages, races, and incomes to lend their voices for real change. For in this man, Americans can see not just the audacity but the possibility of hope for the country that is yet to be.
I had not planned to endorse anyone in the primaries. The Democratic candidates were my friends and colleagues—some for many years. I knew them well and could support any one of them enthusiastically as our party's candidate for the White House. But I had to admit that one stood out. I had already come to know Barack as a Senate colleague who was gifted with a rare combination of talent and principle, vision, and a capacity to transcend divisions of party, ideology, and race. Once he announced his improbable campaign for the presidency, I listened as he spoke to the heart of America, and moved the young in spirit as well as age, by challenging us to think of something bigger than ourselves, something more powerful than the incremental politics of caution. I sensed a deep yearning in our people for the kind of person he is and the kind of president he will be: a fighter who cares passionately without demonizing those who differ, a leader who sees the world clearly without being cynical and shows the world the best of America, a president who will not shred the Constitution but uphold it.
As he moved from victory in those first snowy days in Iowa, to a setback in New Hampshire that revealed both his grit and his grace, to the intensity of South Carolina, I found myself stirred by the power, the poetry, and the authenticity of his call for change. I had not felt this way about a candidate since the 1960s. I talked with my wife, Vicki, my family, and a few close friends. I heard from my niece Caroline that wherever she traveled, people told her that the last leader who had inspired them in this way was President Kennedy. It was time again, I had decided, for "a new generation of leadership" and I could not stand aside.
I rejected the argument that he was too young, too inexperienced. I learned long ago that what counts most in our leadership is not years in Washington but reach of mind, strength of purpose, and that most essential quality of all—the judgment Barack Obama showed in opposing the Iraq war from the start as others pushed ahead or simply went along and then refused to admit they were wrong. I knew as I endorsed him that as president he would never commit young Americans in uniform to a mistake, but only to a mission worthy of their bravery and priceless service.
I also rejected the argument that Senator Obama was too cool, too steady. Those are qualities that can serve us well, even save us—in a Cuban Missile Crisis or an economic crisis. Nor could I accept the notion that the capacity to inspire a nation and a world—whether in John or Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., or Ronald Reagan—is just words. Their words, and Barack Obama's, can be the great engine of change that transforms history itself.
That is what I saw when I enlisted in his campaign. I saw new hope for a way out of the economic wilderness and for a just and fair prosperity that rewards the many and not the few. New hope that this nation will at last lead the world to turn the tide of global warming and turn aside from an energy future that threatens the future itself. New hope that we will teach all our children well. New hope—and this is the cause of my life—that we will guarantee for every American quality affordable health care as a fundamental right and not as a privilege. New hope—and this is the great cause of America itself—that we shall overcome once and for all the setting of race against race, gender against gender, ethnic group against ethnic group, and straight against gay.
Win or lose, with the Obama candidacy the torch has been passed, and I hope I made a difference.
edward m. kennedy (d-mass) _is _currently serving his eighth term in the U.S. Senate.