Is America Ready?

Obama insists that anyone who says Hillary is unelectable is wrong, though every time he makes this seemingly gracious remark--as he did recently in New Hampshire and New York-- he cleverly raises the doubts again. On the surface, both candidates will likely hold their fire and wage relatively clean campaigns. Below them, of course, their operatives will be jabbing away in the 24-hour war rooms that are now a permanent part of big-time politics.

Hillaryland is in a "how dare he?" frame of mind, insisting that the wet-behind-the-ears senator doesn't have the standing to crash her party. Her operatives whisper about an Obama land deal with a Chicago fixer who was later indicted in an unrelated matter. Obamanians reply that the nominating process should not be a coronation, and that, after Whitewater, the Clintons are in no position to flog real-estate flaps into scandals.

At first glance, Clinton looks tougher than Obama, a big advantage in a bruising campaign. Obama isn't weak, just a blank slate. But if the standard is ease with people, the self-described "skinny guy with the funny name" has the edge. "There's not a room he walks into where he's uncomfortable, which causes other people to react the same way," says Axelrod. Anyone reading his revealing first book, "Dreams From My Father," can tell that Obama spent many difficult hours as a young man figuring out who he is, and that now he seems to know.

The campaign will likely have an intra-boomer subplot. Born in 1961 at the end of the baby boom, Obama and his cohort were shaped by a more ironic and less ideological sensibility than those who came of age in the tumult of the '60s. We cannot know yet how their different life experiences would play out in the presidency; that's what campaigns are supposed to help reveal. But it's a safe bet that both would use their global star power to repair America's image abroad.

Until then, these two celebrity candidates might end up helping each other, expanding America's sense of possibility. If either manages to win the White House, or even come close, 2008 will be remembered as the year when the last of the republic's old barriers to entry came tumbling down in one big, exciting presidential election.

With Eleanor Clift, Susannah Meadows, Holly Bailey and Andrew Romano

© 2006