I'm going to dispense with the apologies.  Some of you might not have received an e-mail like this from me, but most of you (lucky you!) know that every four years, and occasionally in between, you'll get a few e-mails from me explaining why I care about this or that matter political.  If I'm wasting your time, feel free to delete.  OtherwiseŠ

I'm writing to tell you why I'm planning to vote for Barack Obama in the upcoming Massachusetts primary election.  At the risk of self-promotion, I hope you might consider passing this around.  With two little kids and two parents holding full-time jobs in this house, there's not a lot of time for me to stuff envelopes and knock on doors.  So this is my contribution to the Obama campaign.  I know some of you are Republicans.  I send it to you in case you're interested.

To keep this as short as possible (only 3600 words!), I'm going to forgo what might have been multiple paragraphs of throat-clearing prelude about how much I respect and admire Hillary Clinton, recognize (as even her critics do) her intelligence, competence, and drive, and think, in the abstract, that she would make a fine, even exceptional, President.  (Self-recognition break: I have now lost all credibility with my Republican readers.)  I'll simply note that, since this year's field of Democratic candidates for President first emerged, I have stated repeatedly that it is the most impressive Democratic field of my lifetime, and that, in the end, I would support any of the leading candidates ­ and a few of the now-departed lesser candidates as well ­ without the slightest hesitation.  That will have to suffice for evidence that I don't come at this as a "Hillary hater," and as my penance for what follows to those among you who revere her.

I believe that it is time for a new direction for this country.  I believe that, whatever its value to the Democratic party 15 years ago, the brand of politics that Hillary Clinton has practiced in her seven years in the Senate, and that her husband practiced so masterfully during the 1990s ­ a split-the-difference centrism that tacks ever-so-slightly this way or that in pursuit of the coveted undecided voter or the occasionally micro-targeted demographic group ­ is no longer right for the Democratic party or, much more importantly, for our country.

THE EXPERIENCE FACTOR

The central argument that Clinton and her supporters have made for her candidacy is that she is the most experienced of the leading Democratic candidates.  As a statement of fact, I think this claim is debatable.  She has actually served as an elected official for less time than Obama has.  But I understand that the argument is as much about her time in the public eye as about her time as an elected official, and I readily concede it.  (What fool would not?)  Whatever the definition of "experience," there is no American politician alive today who has been subject to more public scrutiny than Hillary Clinton, her husband included.

But let me make a daring claim: "experience" is a vastly over-rated qualification for the Presidency.  Abraham Lincoln, towering giant among Presidents, hailed by left and right as one of our greatest, by none too few as the indisputable best, might have been our least "experienced" President.  With the country cracking apart around him, Lincoln slipped into the White House (he literally snuck into Washington for fear of secessionist assassins) with this political resume: eight years in the lower house of the Illinois legislature and a single, two-year term in the U.S. House of Representatives.  What's more, that single term in the House ended in 1849, twelve years before he returned to Washington as President.

In contrast, few Presidents have assumed the Oval Office with more experience than George H.W. Bush.  As a two-term member of Congress, a former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., a former Director of the CIA, and a two-term Vice President, Bush had among the most gilded resumes in Washington history.  He was a middling President.  Richard Nixon was elected to the House of Representatives twice, the Senate once, and served as Vice President for eight years: experience aplenty.  Suffice to say that the number of people who consider the Nixon Presidency a great one is small.

Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan, two Presidents who, if not great, are certainly in the great Presidents argument, both came to the job with less experience than Bush 41, more than Lincoln.  The list could go on, but the bottom line is simple: As a variable for predicting a President's quality, pre-White House experience is exceptionally weak.

RHETORIC AND SUBSTANCE

The argument that Barack Obama lacks Hillary Clinton's experience is usually joined by the suggestion that there is not much substance behind Obama's winsome political rhetoric.  Even Obama's detractors allow that he is charismatic and that, when at the top of his form, is as inspiring a public speaker as we have seen on the political stage in many years.  (Just a couple of examples here: http://www.barackobama.com/2007/02/10/remarks_of_senator_barack_obam_11.php; http://www.barackobama.com/2007/11/10/remarks_of_senator_barack_obam_33.php)  It is hardly unnatural to wonder if the pretty words rest on the ballast of substantive ideas.  So let's address the issue.

I'll refrain from the grubby (if important) details, but I invite you to spend two minutes on Obama's website (http://www.barackobama.com/index.php) and, if you're so inclined, you can easily find the candidate's position on everything from PAYGO budgeting rules to the environmental impact of Confined Animal Feeding Operations.  Frankly, you'll find similar detail on Hillary Clinton's or John Edwards's website.  This is no surprise, and brings us to the larger issue.

As more than a few commentators have noted in recent years, the Democratic party has no shortage of thoughtful policy proposals.  Go the website of the Brookings Institution or the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities or the Century Foundation or any other left-of-center think tank and you will find them literally spilling over with eight- and 10- and 12-point plans for addressing every domestic and foreign policy issue you could possibly imagine.  No, the Democratic party does not lack for ideas.  What the Democratic party lacks, and has lacked for as long as most of us can remember, is the political power to implement those ideas.  And one reason it lacks that power is that it has failed to identify a leader who can articulate its ideas in terms that resonate with the American public.  Now it has one.

Within Democratic circles, it is widely conceded that there is hardly any substantive difference between Hillary Clinton's positions on "the big issues" and Barack Obama's.  If anything, Obama, overall, is probably a bit to Clinton's left, ideologically speaking.  And yet, without alienating Democrats ­ on the contrary, while inspiring millions of them as they have not been inspired in years ­ he appeals to independents and Republicans in a way that no Democrat has appealed to independents and Republicans in my lifetime.  This is no small matter, and let me use it to address the broader point that is raised by the question of whether this Democratic primary has boiled down to a choice between Hillary Clinton's command of policy detail and Barack Obama's majestic rhetoric.  This is a false choice.  The ability to move people with words is rare, and it is absolutely indispensible to substantive success as a President.

There are few things that unite Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan ­ three transformative Presidents ­ across the immeasurably different eras in which they governed and challenges they faced and political approaches they took to addressing those challenges.  But there is one: they were all masterful orators.  This is no accident.

At the heart of a President's job is the need to articulate to the world what America stands for and to Americans what they believe in.  Closer to home, and more concretely, a President's job is to enunciate a legislative program in terms that moves the public to stand behind it.

Truly great Presidents take this a step further.  Obama himself articulated this point last fall (Meet the Press, October 22, 2006):

When I think about great Presidents, I think about those who transform how we think about ourselves as a country in fundamental ways so that, that, at the end of their tenure, we have looked and said to ourselves ­ that's who we are.  And, and our, our ­ and for me at least, that means that we have a more expansive view of our democracy, that we've included more people into the bounty of this country.  And, you know, there are circumstances in which, I would argue, Ronald Reagan was a very successful president, even though I did not agree with him on many issues, partly because at the end of his presidency, people, I think, said, "You know what?  We can regain our greatness.  Individual responsibility and personal responsibility are important."  And they transformed the culture and did not simply promote one or two particular issues.

This is one of the more insightful comments I have read about the Presidency.  What did Roosevelt and Reagan do?  In trying times, they offered the public a hopeful vision for the future, but much more than that ­ for every politician peddles hope; what fool would try to win election by peddling pessimism? ­ they articulated their visions for America's future in terms that resonated deeply, often viscerally, with the public because those visions were linked to abiding American values and articulated with beautiful rhetoric.  Their words were the mirror they held up to the American public, and the public looked in that mirror and said, "Yes, that's who we are."

It is no accident that Roosevelt and Reagan are credited not just with legislative successes achieved within the temporal boundaries of their terms in office, but with establishing enduring electoral majorities that transcended those terms.  They had, as Obama said, transformed the culture in important ways, and caused Americans to look at their country in a different way, and to expect it to be a certain way.  They had created the circumstances in which future political leaders would be expected to follow in their footsteps.  This is no small matter for Democrats like me, who in our lifetimes ­ for more than 40 years ­ have never had a party leader in whose footsteps future leaders wanted to follow.  I will return to this important point below.

But for now, I think it's clear that for any leader, a President especially, words matter tremendously.  In 10 incredible sentences at Gettysburg, Lincoln literally transformed America from a loose confederation of highly autonomous states to the nation we know today.  Roosevelt and Reagan shaped the contours of the nation's politics for a generation each, surely with their actions, but just as surely with their words.  And if you can watch the last three minutes of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech today (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZLvSnr6s50), 45 years after it was delivered, and not get chills or watery eyes, and not feel at once inspired by all that America can be and wistful about her imperfections, well, then you are either a stronger or more cynical person than I.

No doubt, a President's rhetoric must be backed up by actions.  But rhetoric is the current on which those actions set sail.

WHY A VOTE FOR OBAMA MATTERS

It is also the magnet with which rare individuals can attract others to follow them.  And here is where I would like to direct my message a bit more directly to my Democratic readers.  It is possible that the Democratic nominee for President this year, whoever it is, could lose.  Heaven knows we Democrats have plenty of experience watching our candidates lose national elections.  (Any doubts that the Democratic party has been the nation's minority party for the last 40 years?  Since 1964, a Democratic candidate for President has received more than 50% of the popular vote exactly one time: in 1976, when Jimmy Carter won 50.1%: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election%2C_1976)  So perhaps I should knock on wood and perform some ritual anti-jinxing ceremony before writing these words, but the likelihood of the Democratic nominee for President losing this November is low.  Never in my lifetime has the political wind been so strongly at the Democratic party's back during a Presidential election year.  For the first time in my lifetime, the American public has begun moving slightly but undeniably to the left on many of the most profound political issues of the day: health care, global warming, the use of military force, even gay marriage.  Meanwhile, Democratic voters are energized as they have not been sinceŠwell, frankly, it would be hard to say when Democratic voters were last as energized as they are this year.  In every state that has held a primary or caucus so far, Democratic turnout has shattered previous records.

In contrast, Republican voters are demoralized, the party itself deeply fractured.  There are even those who say that George Bush has wrecked the Republican party for years to come.  (I would not put much stock in these breathless political epitaphs.  One should read what death knells the "experts" were tolling for the Republican party in late 1964, after 30 years of Democratic domination of American politics and immediately after Lyndon Johnson crushed Barry Goldwater.  In reality, the GOP was just then bursting back to life.)  There is one and only one thing that can unite the Republican party in this winter of its discontent, and can mobilize its voters to the polls: a Hillary Clinton candidacy.  I could link here to poll after poll as evidence for my argument ­ those showing her high "unfavorable" ratings, those showing that far more Americans would vote against a Hillary Clinton Presidency than against any other candidate, polls showing her running far weaker against potential Republican opponents than Obama.  But forget the polls.  Talk to your Republican friends.  I guarantee that, almost to a person, even the most open-minded of them will be dead set against another Clinton Presidency.  And I equally guarantee that none too few of them, even the most rock-ribbed Republicans among them, will at least concede of Obama, "He's interesting, and quite a talent."

This is not to say that Hillary can't be elected.  In fact, with the political stars aligned as they are, I would bet that if she's the Democratic nominee, she would win, no matter her ultimate Republican opponent.  But if she wins the Democratic nomination, she will run a general election campaign in which half the public ­ hostile to her for reasons with which I often do not agree or even understand, but hostile they are, nonetheless ­ will never even give a hearing to her ideas, no matter their merits.  If she wins the general election, she is likely to do so with a relatively small margin, but in any case a margin built heavily on the Democratic base, since she is loathed by Republicans and unappealing to most independents.  As President, she will assume a Congress, most likely, with a Democratic majority.  But that majority will be much smaller than it appears, for Democratic Senators from Republican-leaning states and Democratic Representatives from marginal districts will have to keep their distance from her, and not be seen to support her legislative initiatives too regularly or enthusiastically, because they know very well that having another Clinton as the face of the Democratic party puts their own political lives at peril, all the more if their opponents can credibly accuse them of being "a Clinton Democrat" or "too close to President Clinton."

Just as important, a new President Clinton will face a Republican caucus in the Congress that is implacably opposed to her every initiative (not least, universal health care, the most important domestic issue of our era, morally speaking, and the issue on which, politically speaking, Democrats have more potential than any other to endear themselves to the public for a generation).  Republican members of Congress, emboldened by constituents who despise the President and her husband, will be happy to serve as obstructionists until the midterm elections in 2010.  I see America in June, 2009, and it is 1995 all over again.  This is so much less than America can be.  It is so much less than this rare political moment offers us.

With Barack Obama, however, we have a candidate who clearly appeals to strong Democrats like me, but who has also attracted an enormous following among independents, previous nonvoters, and more than a few Republicans.  He forms a constituency that hasn't been formed by a Democratic candidate in close to 50 years.  I'll note again: the Democratic party could lose this November's election, even with Barack Obama as its nominee for President.  But with him, Democrats also have the opportunity for a landslide.                    
     
This matters tremendously.  Lincoln once said, "Public sentiment is everything.  With it, nothing can fail.  Without it, nothing can succeed."  A President can know every nook and cranny of Washington, DC, and how to fight bureaucratic battles, and the name of every member of the House, and every arcane procedural maneuver in the Senate rulebook, and if the public doesn't support him or her, that knowledge is for naught.

Of course a President with limited experience in Washington would do well to surround himself with at least some people who have lots of it.  But neither Democrats nor Republicans want for such people, any more than Democrats want, as I noted above, for policy ideas.  Ronald Reagan was famously uninterested in the details of governance, delegating almost all of them to his staff.  He will nonetheless be remembered as one of our more effective Presidents.  In contrast, Lyndon Johnson might have been the most masterful legislative tactician ever to sit in the Oval Office.  And indeed the package of Great Society legislation he moved through Congress in 1965 was among the most sweeping legislative programs ever to make its way into law.  But even that success owed almost wholly to Johnson's enormous 1964 election victory, not his legislative maneuverings, and he knew that well, telling his aides that the time to act was immediately after that election, and that the window of opportunity would quickly close.  He was right.  By 1966, less than two years after Johnson had won one of the largest electoral landslides in American history, public opinion had turned against the Great Society, the Vietnam war, and Johnson himself.  And then it mattered not at all that no person in America knew more about prodding, cajoling, and badgering members of Congress, or maneuvering bills through the halls of the Capitol, than Lyndon Johnson.  Without public sentiment, his legislative program was finished.

So I want to be very clear, because one of the central media narratives of the last several weeks is that Barack Obama draws his support from "liberal elites," who have the luxury of thinking about politics in abstract terms, and as a way to express their values, while Hillary Clinton draws her support from working-class Democrats who think about politics in terms of the concrete actions that government can take to improve their lives.  The subtext, of course, is that Obama supporters are snobs and Clinton supporters are "real Americans."  (This narrative, of course, is precisely the narrative that Republicans have used to such devastating effect against Democrats for decades.  It is irony enough to see it now playing out within the Democratic party, and irony in the extreme to see it play out with Hillary Clinton in the "Republican" role.)  So: I do not support Barack Obama in order to make me feel good about myself.  I support Barack Obama because I want action on universal health care and global warming and the creation of a more progressive tax code.  And I know that the likelihood of such action increases exponentially if the occupant of the Oval Office draws support from the widest possible cross-section of the American public, and if members of Congress from the opposition party will at least give the President a hearing on these issues, and if vulnerable members of Congress from the President's own party don't feel they have to distance themselves from the President in order to protect themselves from their own electorates.

And so I'll close (at last!) by returning to a point I promised to return to above.  There are certain rare moments when the American public is hungry for a fundamental change in the country's direction.  Even more rarely, that moment is met by a political figure who is able to articulate a vision for the country that is at once new and, simultaneously, resonant with fundamental American values and beliefs.  This individual's political positions need not necessarily be "moderate."  Reagan was no moderate.  But he was articulate and inspiring, which made him effective.  And like Roosevelt, he painted an entirely new political portrait of America, even while using a traditionally American palette, and thus left a political legacy to which his successors were obliged to pay homage ­ a legacy, in other words, that lasted, like Roosevelt's, well beyond his years in office.    

If you were to study Barack Obama's positions one by one, and chart them on some mechanical ideological scale, it would not surprise me if you found that, like Reagan and Roosevelt, he is not a "moderate."  I suspect it is even possible that he would come out ­ perish the thought! ­ a "liberal."

And yet here he is, decades into an era in which the term "liberal" is a nasty political epithet, drawing support from a broader cross-section of the American public than has any Democratic political figure since the middle decades of the 20th century.  Why?  He has certainly stepped into national politics at the right moment.  But he has also been able to enunciate liberal values in terms that cast them as deeply American values.  Few of us can remember this happening.  We Democrats have waited many years to hear a party leader articulate a vision for the country that may very well be "liberal," but that nonetheless would have many millions of Americans ­ plenty of Democrats, many independents, and more than a few Republicans ­ saying, "Yes, that is America.  That's who we are."

Barack Obama can do this.  Hillary Clinton, for all her prodigious talents, cannot.  That's why I'm voting for Obama.