NP: Snow Patrol, Eyes Open

If you decided to drink every time a presidential candidate said "change" during the back-to-back debates on ABC on Saturday night, then you're probably just waking up with a really bad hangover. As I read the post-debate coverage, and yet another article on how the angry left of the blogosphere isn't onboard with Senator Obama, I feel like I know the answer here.

The change Obama is talking about is fundamentally different from that of Edwards, Clinton and Kos. The latter category simply are arguing for change from the current Republican control of most of the levers of government. When Clinton argues that she has worked for change for 35 years, it sort of misses the point. She's talking about effectively achieving ncremental change within a binary system, and that's categorically not what Obama is talking about.

That's where this talk of false hope comes in, because it's a symptom of the current climate that some people simply don't think this bigger vision of change is even possible. They could be right, or they could simply be too cynical. As evidenced by about half the political posts I've made, I'd at least like to give it a shot.

On another level, that whole segment of the Democratic debate sounded an awful lot like that old Saturday Night Live fake commercial about the bank that makes change. I was waiting for Bill Richardson to ask Charlie Gibson if he had change for a dollar.