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The source of the excitement

March 4th, 2008
By MICHAEL GRANT

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The almost breathless excitement being created by the Texas and Ohio primaries is absolutely fascinating.

Do you know why? Ask yourself: What is creating the excitement? Not the candidates. Oh, they have had their days of speeches, appearances, debates and advertisements, all calculated to arouse and excite. But that’s over. Today, as breathless as any of us, all they can do is sit and wait. For weeks, we have watched them. Today, they can do no more than sit and hope and hold on, and watch . . . us.

Today, it’s our turn to speak, one registered voter at a time, and it is that voice, the voice of all the involved people, and not the voices of the candidates, that will set the national direction we find ourselves on tomorrow. The future is not in the hands of Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, but in our hands. They must wait for us to decide which of them goes forward.

It is that decision from which the excitement flows, so absolutely fascinating because it does not spring from image or personality, but from anonymity, from roomfuls of strangers crowding toward boxes with ballots in their hands, agreeing to keep an appointment with power, the only real power there is.



This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 4th, 2008 at 3:29 pm and is filed under Newsweek Blogitics, 2008 Elections, Politics. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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