As the Presidential campaign clarifies down to McCain vs. Clinton or Obama, there are echoes of the past in the appeal of each to today's voters.
With the Kennedys' endorsement, Barack Obama is JFK's clear heir, and his success with the young in the primaries so far confirms the comparison.
Hillary Clinton, like the Wizard of Oz, is trying to persuade voters not to pay attention to that man behind the screen (barely) but is at the same time riding on the residue of good feeling from his prosperous, warless 1990s.
John McCain is morphing into another, albeit testier, version of Reagan--a plain-spoken, optimistic patriot who will try to charm Americans into not, as RR put it, holding his opponents' comparative youth and inexperience against them.
Beyond gender, race and ideology, this generational undercurrent of the young for Obama, the middle-aged for Clinton and the elderly for McCain will be part of the contest for the hearts and minds of Americans of all ages as they try to mature beyond the Bush era.
It should be a vintage election year.
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We need a change of direction in this country and a change in our relationship with the rest of the world.
John McCain's campaign slogan might as well be,
"Same old, same old."
The country can not handle another Republican spendthrift administration. It is time for the Democrat leadership to balance the books again.
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