Restoring Possibility

Obama has a great line that he trotted out at Thursday's Democratic presidential debate: "Part of what I would like to do is restore a sense of what is possible in government."

While that's a great sound bite -- and sums up nicely what is most attractive about Obama's candidacy -- it underscores one major difference between Democrats and Republicans. While the Democrats want to restore a sense of what is possible in government, we Republicans want to restore a sense of what is possible in America.

Obama's comment focuses on what government can do. But the secret of the American experiment is that America's never been about what government can do, but what kind of environment government can foster to allow the American people to do amazing things.

McCain-Huckabee

Democrats may be longing for a Clinton-Obama or Obama-Clinton ticket, but I'm hoping for a McCain-Huckabee ticket. If McCain has any hope of mobilizing Republicans in November, he'll need the excitement that Huckabee generates among the (evangelical) conservative base. I also rather like Huckabee. While Huckabee's positions are sometimes alarmingly naive (I'm particularly troubled by the Fair Tax), his heart seems to be in the right place, and he's a very effective communicator. A colleague of mine who attended all of the CNN-YouTube debates commented that, while she's Democrat, if she were a Republican, she would probably vote for Huckabee. Four to eight years under McCain's tutelage might be just what Huckabee needs to make a successful bid for the White House.