Just a few hours ago--but already yesterday--Barack Obama accepted the Democratic nomination for President. Wonder what Tom Jefferson, our brilliant, flawed, slave-owning founder, would have made of the matter? I think he probably--at least, having several additional centuries to mull it over--would have adjusted to the situation. He was not able to transcend the thinking of his time, at least not totally. But he was brilliant enough to promulgate some ideas we, his spiritual descndants, have not yet caught up to.
For a lot of us the Obama candidacy is troubling, leading us to a place where "change" is not just a slogan but a fact. What matters, though, is not the identity of the candidate--his or her color, faith, gender--but the health of the American ideal, the combination of self-reliance and community cooperation and the capacity for hope that made us what we are. Obama seems to understand and value that ideal; and also to understand that it has suffered serious injury and needs to be restored. This makes him not only an agent for needed change, but a true conservative. This is a combination from which much good can come.
But first, we must win the election.