Obama and Blair: A little bit of history repeating itself
Thursday, October 2nd, 2008
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: a) Barack Obama is winning America over as Tony Blair did Britain in 1997; and b) if America wakes up on November 5th to an Obama victory, it will be a similar feeling of a new dawn – and of a sudden, overnight and irrevocable dismissal of an old regime and an old way of thinking – as it was here in the UK on the morning of May 2nd that year, when we waved goodbye to over a decade of Thatcherism.
Joe Klein has written a very interesting article about Obama’s ascent, and his character, for Time. And here’s the quote which made me think of Blair again:
“There has been no grand cathartic moment for him in this campaign, but rather a steady accretion of trust, a growing public sense that he knows what he’s talking about and isn’t going to get crazy on us.”
And that, my American friends, is exactly how Tony Blair won the British election in 1997. So we all know what happens next, right?
