former President Clinton's call to overcome fear and vote for change

[NVMojo]

Brian Greenspun on former President Clinton's call to overcome fear and vote for change



I really want to talk about China.

I have just come back from a most remarkable trip to China. You know, the country everybody's talking about with its incredible economy, globally suffocating environmental challenges, envy-producing skylines and all-around effort to enter the modern world.

There is so much to talk about and share. But, silly me. Having been gone most of the month of October, it almost slipped my mind that there was an election going on in Nevada and across the country. An election of some note, I might add.

So, China will have to wait - it is a very patient country, even if we are not - so a few more days before enlightenment shouldn't be a problem. That's because there is an election in two days, and I have to give my two cents because - that's what I do.

Last Thursday I went to visit with a college classmate who came to help rally the troops on behalf of Sen. Dina Titus and other Democrats who, so far, have defied the odds and caused their Republican opponents a good deal of consternation. I always enjoy listening to former President Bill Clinton because he is one of the few people in this country - in and out of politics - who has the brainpower and capacity to deal with myriad difficult issues and make sense out of them. He couples that talent with an uncanny ability to explain to those of us Americans who want to pay attention to such things what the issues are all about.

Lest I forget, he can be partisan. But, as a former president of the United States, I have watched him rise to a different level of statesmanship, one in which partisan politics is always a player but not a determinant in the ultimate question: What is best for America?

During his address to the faithful on Thursday, he spoke about a fear that many voters across the country seem to have in common. He explained it as having the ability to swim and the confidence that you won't drown in the deep end of the pool, but a fear once you are on the diving board that if you actually dive or jump into the pool, what you know may not help.

It is an irrational fear, to be sure, but a real one. It is that same fear, he said, that seems to be gripping many Nevada voters who have been used to voting Republican for the past decade or so and who no longer have confidence - at best - in the current lawmakers in the Senate and the House to do the jobs they were hired on to do.

I say the last decade or so because, as those of us who were here 14 years ago remember - by the way almost half of Southern Nevadans weren't here in 1992 - Nevada helped elect a Democrat as president for the first time in decades. The result of that election of Bill Clinton was a robust economy, incredible job growth, relative world peace and a White House that stayed fully engaged on every issue and involved in every problem from the first day of the term until the very last.

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http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/text/2006/nov/05/566617202.html