September 4, 2008

After an interminable primary season, one that featured a bitter internal fight among the Democrats and a surprising come-from-behind victory for the Republicans, the presidential race enters the home stretch, its late innings (pick your metaphor). And if history is any guide, the rancor will get worse before it — no, it will merely get worse.

Barriers tumble on both sides of the aisle.

But before neighbor turns against neighbor, and red against blue, it is worthwhile to take a breather and appreciate the historic moment. Forty-five years after Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech, an African-American stands nominated as the presidential candidate of one of the country’s two major parties. It would take a churlish imagination to belittle this achievement (just as it would take a Pollyanna-ish one to declare that our racial challenges have been met and solved). For the Jews who invested so much in the civil rights struggle, it is a long-awaited and gratifying arrival, and Barack Obama deserves our admiration for getting us there.

On the Republican side, John McCain made history of his own by choosing his party’s first female vice-presidential running mate. Sarah Palin literally brings a new face to GOP politics, and presumably a new set of concerns and insights missing among the white males who gathered for the party’s primary debates. Some of those concerns are more personal than perhaps McCain would have liked, but his choice has already served as a reminder that there are immensely talented women politicians on both sides of the aisle.

America still has a long way to go in healing the wounds of its racial discord and treating women as full equals. But that doesn’t mean we can’t celebrate milestones along the way.

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