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Hope
“All odds—all odds—said I shouldn’t be standing here. But I am because of love and education and lots of hope. . . . Hope is not blind optimism. Hope is not sitting on the sidelines or shirking from a fight. Hope is that thing inside of us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that there is something greater inside of us. . . . They say I need to be seasoned; they say I need to be stewed. They say, ‘We need to boil all the hope out of him—like us—and then he’ll be ready.’ . . . If you will work with me, like you’ve never worked before, then we will win. And we will win America. And then we will change the world.”
—Barack Obama, new president-elect, on the campaign trail in New Hampshire, Jan. 5, 2008.
“These are difficult times for our country. And I pledge to [Sen. Obama] tonight to do all in my power to help him lead us through the many challenges we face. I urge all Americans who supported me to join me in not just congratulating him, but offering our next president our goodwill and earnest effort to find ways to come together to find the necessary compromises to bridge our differences and help restore our prosperity, defend our security in a dangerous world, and leave our children and grandchildren a stronger, better country than we inherited.”
—Sen. John McCain, conceding the presidential election to Barack Obama, Nov. 4, 2008
Well, so much for Emily Dickinson (“Hope is the thing with feathers”). But then, Woody Allen took care of that many years ago: “Hope is not the thing with feathers. My brother is the thing with feathers.”
ReplyDeleteIt was a good night.
Best,
Andy
The audacity of hope pretty well sums it up. It was a good night. I feel good for our country, but some fear and trepidation for our president-elect. Last night I saw the weight of the world begin to settle on his shoulders.
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