RFK - The Last Campaign

The title of this blog, "Ripples and Currents", comes from the words of Robert F. Kennedy, specifically the quote that's immediately below the title bar. RFK is my greatest political hero and is one of those rare political leaders who remains relevant long after his death.

Over the past few days I've been reading a new book on RFK by Thurston Clarke entitled "The Last Campaign". The book chronicles Kennedy's campaign for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 1968, a campaign that lasted only 82 days and ended with RFK's assassination the night of his victory in the California primary. Its a fascinating look at what was truly a unique campaign, one which ran counter to the prevailing conventional wisdom and which took unprecedented political risks. It was a campaign against the odds, against the Democratic establishment, against expectations and against the "tried-and true" methods in those days of securing a party's nomination. It was a campaign in which Robert Kennedy emerged from the shadow of his fallen brother to become an American icon and hero in his own right.

"The Last Campaign" is a book I would highly recommend to anyone having an interest in presidential politics. It is also a book that clearly reminded me of why I chose the "ripples and currents" quote and why RFK will for me always be the politician by which all others are measured. What Robert Kennedy has always meant to me and what he could have meant to America is summed up in the book's closing pages:

"Whether Robert Kennedy would have become a good president is unknowable. All that is certain is that during his campaign he convinced millions of Americans that he was a good man, perhaps a great man. The Wallace supporters, Delaware bridesmaids, Gary steelworkers, Nebraska farmers and Chicano farmworkers mourned him so fiercely because they sensed that he had tried to educate them rather than manipulate them, reconcile rather than divide them, engage them in dialogue rather than feed them the message of the day, appeal to their better angels instead of their wallets and demand sacrifice instead of promising comfort. They mourned him because the ached for a leader who could heal their wounded nation and restore its tarnished honor and because they ached to feel noble again."

Hopefully President Obama will prove to have some of these same qualities. They are needed every bit as much now as they were 40 years ago.