Obama is the reminder of a President we never had

Some men see things and ask why?
I see things and ask, why not?
(Robert Kennedy, 1968)

This is the major significance of Barack Obama. He is the Robert Kennedy who didn’t get the chance. Yes we can! is exactly the recommendation that Robert Kennedy left us, before he was shot to death. Indeed, why not? More than any other Presidential candidate, Robert Kennedy practiced the oratory and operated out of a heart similar to Obama’s.

Kennedy’s assassination followed the assassination of Martin Luther King, which was some half year before. And the death of both of them could be seen as their ultimate, personal sacrifice to help end a war which very few people could still consider justified. The war in Vietnam.

There is an almost bizarre similarity between both the circumstances and the public atmosphere of 1968 and those of 2008. But this time it is a Democrat who won, not another Republican – however little comparison can be made between McCain and Nixon.

Nevertheless. Nixon almost single-handedly crushed the hope of an entire generation. He protracted the War (eager for an honorable withdrawal and nothing less) and he corrupted the entire office of the US President.

This most certainly is not the expectation we have of President-Elect Barack Obama. It is highly important for our world that any further comparison with 1968 and the subsequent years fails from this point.