And now, in the most amazing trick of all, a silver-tongued freshman senator
has found a way to sell hope. To get it, you need only give him your vote.
Barack Obama is getting millions.
This kind of sale is hardly new. Organized religion has been offering a
similar commodity - salvation - for millennia. Which is why the Obama campaign
has the feel of a religious revival with, as writer James Wolcott observed, a
"salvational fervor" and "idealistic zeal divorced from any particular policy or
cause and chariot-driven by pure euphoria."
"We are the hope of the future," sayeth Obama. We can "remake this world as
it should be." Believe in me and I shall redeem not just you but your country -
nay, we can become "a hymn that will heal this nation, repair this world and
make this time different than all the rest."
And believe they do.
