The Hope Factor
This challenge by Barack Obama might just be what Hillary Clinton needs to be an effective president. If Sen. Clinton is to be president--although it is very possible that Barack Obama will surge just enough, and just enough, into March, to prevail--she will start the job on day one with a full realization that, in order to count on a base of political support among Democrats and educated independents, she has to pursue peace in Iraq aggressively, be comfortable and confident in her own skin, connect her inner beliefs to her public policy agenda, and work to persuade a heterogeneous slice of the country that we need both a fettered market and a strong government to secure fair access to health care, protection from poverty, continuous opportunities for education and improvement, and, most of all, an ethos of public responsibility for the public good, even if it is expensive, as the nation has previously and successfully provided itself in its worst of times.
