I just love this picture from the Wall Street Journal this morning. It is from the press conference Obama held yesterday.

We’ve said goodbye to the circle sunrise logo of the campaign and appropriated the flag and eagle. The colors have become deeper. The same can be seen at change.gov.

The image builders of team Obama are unparalleled. It is a real treat to have these folks on “our” side for a change. Still, it will take some real effort to remember that this is just image and keep an eye on the substance ball as well.

I spoke with my sisters this morning and Gabriella told me that David Brooks had been pontificating on one of the networks last night. It sounded like he’d been spreading a message much like one of his recent columns for the NYTimes.

In the next few years, the nation’s wealth will either stagnate or shrink. The fiscal squeeze will grow severe. There will be fiercer struggles over scarce resources, starker divisions along factional lines. The challenge for the next president will be to cushion the pain of the current recession while at the same time trying to build a solid fiscal foundation so the country can thrive at some point in the future.

We’re probably entering a period, in other words, in which smart young liberals meet a stone-cold scarcity that they do not seem to recognize or have a plan for.

So? I asked. Where does he get his history? I asked G what the biggest shift in government’s role of the past century had been. She suggested the New Deal. I agree. And when was the New Deal dealt?

At that moment the nation was severely constrained. FDR came to office facing a huge crisis and a “stone-cold scarcity” if ever there was one. But one of my mantras is that creativity is born of constraints. The very constraints that faced FDR, that face us today, may help bring forth the creative approaches to government and our problems that we need.

Let me back up a bit and explain this “creativity is born of constraint” idea.

When I was in college I spent a lot of time printing at the Pierson Press. This was a letterpress shop in an old converted racquet ball court. There I learned to set lead type by hand, picking one letter at a time out of the upper or lower cases, lock it into forms, and roll the paper across it. I loved letterpress printing, the bite of paper, the impression of type on a page, the mixing of ink, the fine control and endless possibilities, the excitement of breaking rules.

A couple years later the Mac arrived and my friend Kirk and I convinced the local Kinkos to get a few Macs one the LaserWriter and PageMaker arrived. Oh, man, endless fonts, no running out of letters, last minute changes to designs, mixing in drawings of all sorts, the flexibility and endless possibilities, the excitement of making the machine meet my imagination.

Years later I realized that I’d felt creatively freed in both situations. Each imposed severe restrictions on me. Letterpress was very unforgiving of error, setting type was difficult, the fonts and letters we had available were quite limited. Laser printing was limited by toner, black and white, only a few kinds of paper, and only a few sizes.

Yet it was within those boundaries that my creative expression was allowed to flourish. The excitement was in pressing against the edges, in feeling the tension of medium and imagination, of getting to know the tools well enough to make them work for me. I began to recognize that art was often fundamentally about this sort of artificially constrained play. We choose a medium, we immerse ourselves in it, get dirty with it, and see how we can make it serve our dreams. Most recently for me this has been a lesson I relearned with tile. The limitations of mosaic tile are severe, not the least of them, I learned, is the time it takes. When doing a job for my mom recently, I found that by embracing my extremely short timeline I opened a whole new approach to the problem that I really enjoyed.

Today I realized that this lesson, that creativity is born of constraints, applies to politics and our national endeavor as well as it does to art.

We are entering a constrained moment. In that I agree with Brooks. But where he sees scarcity, division, and struggle, I see creativity, compromise, and beautiful potential. It is at these moments where we seem most bound that we are most likely to make a leap together.

Think about it this way: When can you get people in a neighborhood together for a meeting? On a sunny day when all is well folks see endless possibilities around them, the go out for walks, they go on vacation, they go to the movies. But what if the day is drippy or the cars on the streets have all had their mirrors smashed? It is a lot easier to get people together when they are bound by some common constraints of weather or circumstance or whatever it may be. Our financial system meltdown is such a common constraint.

I believe Barack Obama will be the kind of leader we need to call us together for that national conversation. He will be pressing for the creative solutions, engaging dynamic minds, respecting the input of science. What now? Now we make the fullest possible use of the awesome constraints we have been given at this juncture in our nation’s history to rebuild our government it ways that it can serve us and our children in the coming century. There are few more exciting times to be engaged in such a call than when the environment conspires to put everybody in the same room, at the same meeting, looking for a way to break the rules, to make media meet imagination and carry us forward.

That is our next step.

Am I happy this morning? Yes, I am. But it feels more complicated than that. I’m feeling wary, ready, urgent, afraid. I’m feeling like this campaign has just been a first step of a long road ahead. Note, Obama didn’t call us to be happy last night: he called us to action. He did not let his supporters (or his opponents, for that matter) off the hook. He told us there is work to do. Work we must all take part in, together.

This victory alone is not the change we seek. It is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were. It can’t happen without you, without a new spirit of service, a new spirit of sacrifice. So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility, where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves but each other.

Let us remember that, if this financial crisis taught us anything, it’s that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers. In this country, we rise or fall as one nation, as one people. Let’s resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long. Let’s remember that it was a man from this state who first carried the banner of the Republican Party to the White House, a party founded on the values of self-reliance and individual liberty and national unity.

He does not let us off the hook. He calls us to serve. Maybe that’s why I feel the way I do. I wonder, am I strong enough? Will I live up to the call he makes? Will we give him the support it takes to allow him to do this vicious job for us while still loving and growing his beautiful family?

He goes on to remind us that this campaign has been about building, not tearing down.

Those are values that we all share. And while the Democratic Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress.

As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, “we are not enemies but friends. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.”

And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices. I need your help. And I will be your president, too.

Let us take the next steps together.

Through the uses of corporations, banks and securities, new machinery of industry, of labor and capital—all undreamed of by the Fathers—the whole structure of modern life was impressed into the service of economic royalists. It was natural and perhaps human that the privileged princes of these new economic dynasties, thirsting for power, reached out for control of government itself. They created a new despotism and wrapped it in the robes of legal sanction. In its service new mercenaries sought to regiment the people, their labor and their property. And as a result the average man once more confronts the problem that faced the Minute Man. For too many of us life was no longer free; liberty no longer real; men could no longer follow the pursuit of happiness. Against economic tyranny such as this, the American citizen could appeal only to the organized power of the Government.

… There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.

FDR, 1936

Because it so directly mirrors my own experience, I just want to quote a passage from Freddie deBoer’s response at Culture11 this evening to Obama’s 30 minute commercial.

I have not had what you can say is unshakeable confidence this electoral season. Can you blame me? I gained my legal right to vote just in time to vote in 2000. You know how that turned out. I sat through demoralizing failures in 2002 and 2004. It’s been easy to be pessimistic. So I’ve often felt a little jumpy about November 4th except when I’m watching Barack. It’s been a strange facet of this election season. When Palin burst on the scene, I felt panicked. When McCain got his convention bounce, I was deeply afraid. When I watch Obama surrogates on television, I rarely feel assured. When he is getting attacked again and again in some stump speech somewhere, it depresses me.

But every time — every time — that fear and worry evaporates, as soon as I see Barack. When he appears on TV and addresses the latest events, I suddenly feel calm. I feel like we can actually win this thing. If I ever give myself over to the hopelessness that electoral politics can engender in any of us, I’m always cured by listening to him. Not because he’s my perfect candidate; he’s far, far from it. Not because I think he can’t lose, because he can. It’s simply that there’s something about him, some ineffable and brilliant quality, that radiates calm to me.

When I watch Obama I get the sense he’s saying both “I got this” and “I can do this if you give me a hand” at the same time. The calm comes from steady leadership that is empowering me to make a difference. I have “agency,” as Mary might put it. I feel a sense of control.

My favorite architect is, of course, the one we hired! John was just breaking away to start his own firm, Shelter Architecture, when we hired him to design our third floor “subtraction” for our house. My study at home is part of the space that was made alive by the light and air John added to our lives.

Today John was interviewed about a wonderful new house he just completed in Minneapolis. Once again, it looks like John really lived into the dreams of his clients, building a simple modern house that, it turns out, gets the highest possible LEED certification for sustainability. It is an outstanding house! Take a look for yourself.

The interview is well worth listening to, along with its slideshow. The priority on this house was less on fancy new energy technology than on solid foundations of materials along with a flexibility of internal infrastructure that leaves this house efficient today and ready to adopt even more efficient technology tomorrow. The slides are also fun because you’ll catch a glimpse of John!

Congratulations to John and the whole Shelter team. They must be doing well, I notice that they are moving into new space next month. Listen to the team talk about their commitment to “cause architecture.”

No, I don’t mean in the polls (though I hope that stays the case), I mean in the response to the bailout failure. Yesterday, as the bailout failed, here is what Obama said to a rally in Denver:

There are going to be some bumps and trials and tribulations and ups and downs before we get this rescue package done. It’s important for the American public and for the markets to stay calm because things are never smooth in Congress, and to understand that it will get done.

I know a lot of people are nervous. A lot of people in this audience and a lot of people who may be watching today. But now is not the time for fear. Now is not the time for panic.

I’m confident that we are gonna get there, but it’s gong to be a little rocky. It’s sort of like flying into Denver. You know you’re going to land, but it’s not always fun going over those mountains.

Today we hear Bush:

Yesterday, the House of Representatives voted on a financial rescue plan that had been negotiated by Congressional leaders of both parties and my administration. Unfortunately, the measure was defeated by a narrow margin. I’m disappointed by the outcome, but I assure our citizens and citizens around the world that this is not the end of the legislative process.

Producing legislation is complicated, and it can be contentious. It matters little what a path a bill takes to become law. What matters is that we get a law. We’re at a critical moment for our economy, and we need legislation that decisively address the troubled assets now clogging the financial system, helps lenders resume the flow of credit to consumers and businesses, and allows the American economy to get moving again.

At least Bush seems to be taking cues from a real leader now.

For the record, I was opposed to the bailout and I am glad it was defeated. I also think we absolutely should do something at the federal level to respond to the failure of our financial institutions to do their job. But that action should be aimed at the root of problems, not structured as a hand-out to the top.

I hope Obama can help lead us there. But I don’t expect that until after we get him elected. This is our election, the change we bring will be our own selves to the process. Obama may turn out to be the leader we need, but we should all be the kind of participants this country demands.

An email exchange got me rolling this morning and I thought I’d share it here. It started when Mary quoted the Wikipedia to illuminate Barak Obama’s community organizing accomplishments.

After four years in New York City, Obama moved to Chicago to work as a community organizer for three years from June 1985 to May 1988 as director of the Developing Communities Project (DCP), a church-based community organization originally comprising eight Catholic parishes in Greater Roseland (Roseland, West Pullman, and Riverdale) on Chicago’s far South Side.[12][14] During his three years as the DCP’s director, its staff grew from 1 to 13 and its annual budget grew from $70,000 to $400,000, with accomplishments including helping set up a job training program, a college preparatory tutoring program, and a tenants’ rights organization in Altgeld Gardens.[15]

Her respondent replied…

Thank you for your response by sending the info from Wikipedia. I will make an attempt to look into it. As you know, Wikipedia, is kind of a community organized “encyclopedia” is not the last word on anything because anybody who reads it can make changes in its content. There is no final word in Wikipedia. I’m sure that you have other more reliable sources that you could send me. In the meantime I will assume that what you sent me is accurate.

As far as your other remark about “executive experience” is concerned, perhaps we should have an understanding of the definition of terms. An executive is someone who makes decisions and is ultimately responsible for those decisions which effect numerous people. The ultimate executive in the country is the president; in a state is the governor; in a city is the mayor. Every executive has a sign on his desk, whether he or she likes it or not, THE BUCK STOPS HERE. Obama has not had that kind of experience yet. Obama has a public voting record of what he did as a state senator. We all know how he voted on 130 occasions. An executive does not have that luxury.

The commander of a large air wing does have to make executive decisions on a daily basis.

Actually, I’d suggest that the Wikipedia is one of the most reliable sources you can reference. It is well “policed” by it’s community and has strict rules on citation. Especially controversial articles, like the Obama article, get especially good attention.

The passage Mary quoted includes citations for all its facts from Who’s Who in America, the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the New Republic, the Boston Globe, and the Philadelphia Inquirer, to name just a few. You are welcome to indulge in “data free research” (as my mom calls it) to form your opinions, but if you want a bit of data, the Wikipedia is not a bad place to start, as long as you don’t allow it to become your exclusive source.

As to executive ability: I’d agree, the good executives have a sign like “the buck stops here” on there desks. The better execs even mean it. But I’d say that one of the most “experienced” execs in the country would be George Bush, and he is anything but a buck-stops-here kind of guy. He’s more a blame-the-other-guy kind of executive. His excuses range from “poor intelligence” to “evil left wing media” and he wriggles out of any blame for any mistake. No decent exec is going to avoid making mistakes, but the best seek out strong insight into the reality of the situation around them and own their errors when they make them, adjusting strategy as required. “Experience” does not tell you much about how one will perform in an office like the presidency. Besides which, McCain has no more executive “experience” than Obama, so the point is rather moot. In fact, in the one executive role we can compare side by side, how they run their presidential campaigns, it is pretty clear that Obama is by far the more gifted executive.

I believe the more urgent point is which candidate is really willing to look at the world as it really is and find the best course for America in that world. The Bush administration has operated as though the lies it tells itself and us will become truth through repetition. Then they make decisions based on those lies which end up being incredibly wrong-headed. Fiction does not become truth through repetition. McCain seems happy to do the same, and his latest decision (Palin) is just more of the same. He can repeat as often as he like that she is qualified to be president, but you have to have pretty big blinders on to buy that fiction. If you like living in a fairy tale world where America is always number one and the rest of the world always bends to our will even if the message is being carried by a gifted hockey-mom who believes we are on a mission from God, by all means, vote McCain, he’s your man.

But if you think we need to adjust our world-view a bit, to consult real experts in foreign policy, to be nimble on our feet when dealing with real foreign power, ready to adjust strategy and consider alternatives, then you should be considering the qualities Obama has displayed during this long campaign and career. He is not afraid to face the real world, he is not afraid to draw the “best and brightest” around him, he is not even afraid to change is mind and choose the best path that presents itself at a given time. He will build a real “administration” not just a White House desperately managing a message. He will bring new blood to Washington that will help guide our government to a wiser course. He does not propose to do this alone, this campaign is not about him or McCain: it is about us and how ready we are to roll up our sleeves, face the real world, and work to change the course of our country.

We can start by facing facts, like those in the Wikipedia.

On the last night of the convention we discovered the DNC’s own stream of the proceedings. I had just bought a cable to connect Mary’s laptop to our projector in the attic, so we bought pizza, pulled up the screen, installed Silverlight (gasp, I’d refused during the Olympics, but could not resist it for the convention), and turned on the stream. It turned out to be an amazing DVD-quality feed with zero commercials and zero talking heads. I can hardly believe how different this felt from the usual broadcast.

Here we had super high-quality video projected on our screen without any filtering other than someone who was selecting camera angles to show. No voiceover, no titles, not even the names of presenters put up on the screen. We just saw and heard what folks there saw and heard. It felt like we had a box seat at Invesco field. We rolled out the pizza, settled in, and enjoyed the evening.

What an evening it was, too. We were amazed as we watched the stadium fill. Amused by the wave that started going around the stands. Impressed by speaker after speaker, from Al Gore to Barney Smith. The sun slowly set and the setting became more and more dramatic.

It was getting late when Barack took the stage. By now the colors of the set had become a rich glowing complement to the color of his skin. What an incredible image. I was worried that the bar had been set too high, how could anyone satisfy expectations after all this buildup? Obama’s just a person at a podium, he has to be nervous. Look at the crowd. Understand the moment in history. How could he not be frozen by this?

But of course, he wasn’t. He was steely, devastating in his critique, exquisite in his call, carrying the banner we have all handed him with such grace and elegance that my fears melted away. Can anyone really watch Obama in action and not know that he is ready to hold this office in trust for us all? I have never seen anyone more “presidential.”

Again it struck me how consistently Obama treats this as our campaign. Again the references were to “this campaign,” as they have been from the beginning. The chant repeated over and over was not much “Oh-Ba-Ma” but more often “Yes We Can!” Think of that, “we” can. Bill Clinton gave a terrific speech at the convention the night before, but there was a small moment that illuminated the political gap between he and Obama for me with a floodlight. Take a look at this video of Clinton’s speech, jump to just before the 15 minute mark on the clock. From the transcript:

AUDIENCE: Yes, we can! Yes, we can! Yes, we can! Yes, we can! Yes, we can! Yes, we can! Yes, we can! Yes, we can! Yes, we can!

CLINTON: Yes, he can, but, first, we have to elect him.

For Clinton and most politicians it is about what they can do for us, it is “my campaign” and “my qualifications.” McCain is stuck there in his critique of Obama as unqualified and a celebrity. But Obama rarely makes it about himself, he makes it about all of us. The celebrity of this campaign is not Barack, it is the movement that is audacious enough to believe we can elect him as our voice in the highest office of the land.

Last night Barack was my voice. He expressed my hope, he showed some of my anger, he named some of my dreams, he showed he cares for my people. I want my country back, I want my government to serve the people of this land, not the corporations. Barack has offered himself as a tool of that transformation. May the task not crush him because, God help us all, I intend to take him up on that offer.

My favorite president, partly because of his focus on peacemaking, partly because he listens well, partly because he had the courage to call Americans to sacrifice as part of his energy policy, partly because he is the first president I got to meet up close. His patience and discretion during the Iran hostage crisis made a very deep impression too. Since his presidency he has been my favorite ex-president. I’ve seen no other ex-president as actively engaged in issues that matter.

Today the Daily Dish points to a profile of Carter in New York magazine.

By June 9, six days after Obama secured the nomination (and Carter’s endorsement), McCain had found his sound bite. In an interview on NBC Nightly News, apropos of nothing, McCain said, “Senator Obama says that I’m running for Bush’s third term. It seems to me he’s running for Jimmy Carter’s second.”

Maybe I’m among the few who sincerely hopes this is true. I’d love for Obama to give us Jimmy Carter’s second term. Unfortunately, I don’t have any illusions that this will be the case. But maybe at least on energy policy?

On the other hand, given the current energy and economic crises, you might look back and think that Carter was enormously prescient. Last week, presidential historian Joseph Wheelan wrote an op-ed in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution asking, in regard to Carter’s promotion of alternative fuels, “Can we now acknowledge that Jimmy Carter was right all those years ago?” Carter also negotiated the 1978 Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel, a 30-year truce that has never once been violated (something one cannot say of any other negotiated peace in the region, and an achievement that seems even more impressive in retrospect). “The last time I looked,” says Jody Powell, Carter’s former press secretary, “President Carter’s favorability rating was a good bit higher than McCain’s or Obama’s or George Bush’s.”

Obama’s faith journey has been a big part of the current campaign. Here Carter considers how he and the current occupant of the Oval Office live their faith.

“I can’t say I know how the current president looks on the rest of the world,” Carter says. “I am determined and sometimes stubborn, and he is, too, but I don’t look on the rest of the world as he does, despite our shared Christian faith. For instance, I worry about our endangered values. I worry about nuclear-weapons proliferation. I worry about our torture of prisoners and how that affects our commitment to human rights. I believe in waging war only when our security is in danger. I believe in taking care of and preserving the environment. On these issues, he and I are almost diametrically opposed. Certainly, I do not profess to understand his motivations. As Christians, yes, we worship the same savior, Jesus Christ, and I think we worship Christ in the same way. I look on some aspect of Jesus Christ perhaps differently from him: I worship the Prince of Peace.”

May we all grow old as gracefully as Carter.

What’s most interesting about Carter at the age of 83 is not that he’s an eccentric, or that he’s outspoken, or that he continues to be a part of the debate, but that his mind-set and his policies seem to jibe so well with the attitudes of young people, students, and the blogosphere. In many ways, Carter seems more relevant than George W. Bush, his ideas more contemporary, his interests more outward-looking. He builds houses in New Orleans and elsewhere with his Habitat for Humanity project; he jets around the world, funding projects to deal with global health crises; he makes sure elections are free and fair. Carter is more like Bono than he is like Bush.

The full article is well worth a read.