It is out of the context of the Bush years that there emerged Barack Obama, a Maxfield Parrish of a leader, rising out of the rocks, a dazzling thing of beauty and a joy to behold, bright, luminous, a candidate brought to us as if out of a dream. Whose consciousness didn’t he startle? Luminosity is gravity in day-glo and even the cynics can be mesmerized by magic. We are all looking for an answer to our prayers.

But what becomes a nation that follows its leaders rather than creates its leaders? In unison the people of New Britain rose up against the British Crown and out of their dissonance George Washington became their leader.

There is no dissonance now as we contemplate electing a man who dazzles one minute to get our attention and then morphs into the soporific if that is what he thinks the nation desires. Today there is only discontent.

Watching Barack Obama in the debate Wednesday night he reminded me of a character out of a Carlos Castaneda book, a nagual, a shape-shifter, a chameleon; he’s anything you want him to be. Do you want a star? Obama will be your celebrity. Do you need a father figure? He will portray for you the role of the cool, calm and collected.

In Barack Obama there is something for everyone and that is his talent, but could also prove his undoing. Even the hope-filled eventually long for reality; the cynics demand specifics and won’t settle for pablum.

And what of John McCain? A war hero to be sure and yes, there have been times he has take on his own party. But what does he stand for now? Once he seemed large but now he seems small as piece by piece he gave away a part of himself in his quest for the presidency until he has shrunk in stature to half the man he once was.

So here America is, nineteen days before the election of a lifetime. I’ve heard it said that this election cycle has brought us the choice of the best and the brightest. I heartily disagree.  Both these candidates are seriously flawed nominees, but so are the American people imperfect as voters.

Hope is the cross of the daunted, cynicism is the despair of the scorned. It shouldn’t be the hope-filled who elect presidents, and it shouldn’t be the cynics either.

The choice of a president must be academic. But that requires thought when we are a country with little time for contemplation, which the cynic in me says is exactly how our leaders want us, mindless, even as I cling to the hope that tomorrow will bring a better day for our nation.

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