The Night Robert Kennedy Finally Won

[underpants]

On November 4, 2008, at 11:00 pm, Robert Kennedy finally won.

Forty years after his assassination shattered dreams and brought his quest to change America to a sudden, brutal halt, Robert Kennedy reached the goal that had been denied him in life.


"There are those who look at things the way they are," he said, "and ask why. I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?" We believed that he would try to end the Vietnam War. We believed that he would take Whites and African-Americans away from the precipice. We knew that he represented what we in our idealism wanted to become. Hours after Martin Luther King, Jr. had been shot, he told a largely African-American crowd in Indianapolis that "What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black."

And then, like his brother and like Reverend King, he, too, was killed. Many sat out the 1968 election in despair or disgust. Many, most notably his brother and his children, kept his legacy alive. We tried to find his spirit in the McGovern campaign and in the Carter Administration. We recognized echoes of his voice in Bill Clinton's inaugural addresses. But it was not until a young African-American Senator from Illinois dared to seek the presidency that we seemed to be back on course.

And what now? Where do we go from here, now that Barack Obama has won? Much has changed in the past 40 years, but even more remains to be accomplished. In 1968 we faced enormous challenges but ended up with Richard Nixon, a protracted war and Watergate. And then we spent years looking backward, often wistfully. We asked ourselves, what if? In 2008 we have wrested for ourselves a different future. Barack Obama represents not just change but hope, the same kind of hope that Robert Kennedy inspired in us. Only this time, we have been allowed to see if our hopes can be realized.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/menachem-rosensaft/the-night-robert-kennedy_b_141320.html

[Captain Hilts]

1. The state he was killed in voted strongly for bigotry against gays. nt

[Gman]

2. This is the conversation my wife and I had election night

Bobby finally won.

[ananda]

3. Kennedy's are making a comeback.

At last. Yay!

[Botany]

4. Good Morning America

[keith the dem]

5. I was a very young boy when they got JFK,

and was a little older when they got Bobby. Each time I have visited the Kennedy graves at Arlington, I couldn't help but cry for what could have been. The other night I cried because the dream has come back.

The Kennedy's were far from perfect and surely Obama will fall short of perfection. But a good democracy is more than one person. That is what the leadership of the Kennedy's and Obama remind us. We are all in this together, this is our country and our responsibility. Those of us at DU know this, that is why we are here and why we give a dam. But Obama, as did the Kennedy's, has inspired a whole generation to see beyond their video games and televisions. He has shown them the true meaning of democracy.

Abraham, John and Bobby....we have missed you...we have needed you....WELCOME HOME!