Mule Train Mail: Dr. Downing and Sheila Tobias on How Obama and Clinton Renewed Nation’s Spirit

By Ted Downing and Sheila Tobias as published in the Arizona Republic, Jun. 10, 2008

Today, all Americans can say to their sons and daughters, "Some day, you can be president of the United States."

The 2008 Democratic primary, the Obama-Clinton contest, has reshaped our political landscape. The way we look at who can aspire to the highest office in the land will never be the same, and that is a positive for all Americans, no matter their party.

Two supremely qualified candidates vied to be the Democratic nominee for president, one an African-American, the other a woman. No matter whether Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton became the eventual nominee, it would have been historic.

Obama is the first African-American presumptive nominee for president of the United States. Clinton has created a landmark moment that ranks with the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920 giving American women the right to vote.

But this moment transcends the changes in the politics of race and gender, as important as those achievements are. It speaks to the idea that parents, no matter who they are or what hardships they have endured, can tell their children, "Yes. Yes, you can!"

Obama and Clinton share the "H factor" – the hope factor. Their stories and their campaigns show that all of us are worth more than the labels society puts on us – youth, senior, blue collar, elite, White, Black, man, woman and the like.

It was the H-factor that mobilized record turnouts and 36 million voters. They realized that hope is personified in the candidate’s themselves, not mere rhetoric.

Look at Obama’s compelling story. He is a mixed-race child of a single parent, raised by his grandparents. His natural gifts grew to their full potential because he had the opportunity to attend excellent schools during his formative years and was able to get the financial aid he needed to attend the nation’s finest colleges. And because he understood that he owed his country a debt of gratitude for all it gave him, he refused the offers of lucrative jobs on Wall Street, which were his for the taking as a top Harvard Law School graduate, and decided instead to serve his community.

Look at Clinton’s determination to rise beyond the ceiling society had placed on a woman’s ambitions. Her tenacity in the face of the voices telling her it was time to concede the nomination to Obama, her decision to contest every primary so no one could ever say she quit the race before it was over, will live on as a beacon to all people – women, certainly, but men, as well – who desire to reach beyond what others tell them they can achieve.

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama bring the hope of a new America that can transcend its dark history of African-Americans as slaves and women and Native American as less than full citizens, the history of hate that lessens us all. Those of us old enough remember a time when we accepted President Kennedy’s challenge to "ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country" are honored and blessed to be witnessing this rekindling of the American spirit.

Ted Downing, a former Arizona lawmaker, endorsed Barack Obama during the primary election season. Sheila Tobias is author of "Faces of Feminism: An Activist’s Reflections on the Women’s Movement," and is a long-time Hillary Clinton supporter who now is supporting Obama.