It's really amazing how Barry Obama is igniting the previously apathetic and disaffected. I've got dear friends who have been tuned out of politics since before they could vote, and they're now canvassing and making blind calls in support of Barack. The young people of this country are getting involved and finding passion in their support of Obama and his hope for the future of America.
It really is an amazing thing to experience...something I never thought would happen in my lifetime. The Chicago Sun-Times puts it best:
On June 5, 1986, the curiously poetic name of Barack Obama appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times for the first time. Obama, new to us but presenting himself as a "community organizer" on the South Side, was quoted in a news story calling on Mayor Harold Washington to get asbestos out of a public housing project.
Obama was right about that one -- the poisonous asbestos had to go -- and perhaps we should have weighed in at the time with a strong editorial. It is the job of a newspaper -- especially this newspaper -- to stand with the powerless against the powerful.
And so today, as we mark the 60th birthday of our newspaper, it is a special pleasure to give Obama this newspaper's endorsement in Tuesday's Illinois Democratic presidential primary. Because we believe he's right again.
Obama is right on the issues, right in daring us to believe in a goodness greater than ourselves, and right in having the confidence to appeal to all of us as one America.
Obama has the power of a celebrity's charisma and the grounding of a common man's birth.
There's been talk of Camelot in the last few days. Back then, that young president said to us:
"Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."
And once, we had another great leader, who said, "I have a dream."
Americans took them at their word. They joined the Peace Corps. They marched on Selma. They protested a pointless war.
We need a president and a leader like that again.
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