It's occurred to me lately that everything is about the story.
I was listening to an NPR report on Barack Obama and I realized that he knows how to tell his. That's why everyone's so excited about him.
Bush knows how to do it. Maybe his story isn't the one we want to hear, but he can tell it. Bill Clinton knows how to tell his, warts and all. and we love him for the soul searching and the hand wringing. And ironically, in the end, for the honesty.
Hillary hasn't told us her story yet. She's fashioned one out of a "what do you want to hear" mentality that has left some of us suspicious and the rest of us disappointed, because we knew her when she was talking. When she was feisty and opinionated. When she had an opinion. This time around she isn't baking cookies, but she's treading so carefully we don't know who she is.
Obama has a story. He embodies the complications of the culture in his very body. He tells it easily and he's proud of it.
I used to turn off the olympics when the esoteric little sports, hurling and various kinds of sledding and rowing showed up. Not any more, because of those little thumbnail bios about how one of the guys practiced with his grandmother's cheese in a little Austrian village. I have someone to root for. Because I know his story.
We all want someone to root for. Not a prepackaged, homogenized, commodity that's come to life as the result of market research.
We want to care. Obama makes us care by sharing himself with us. He has a story.
Hillary had better get one fast if she wants to capture our imagination. And the nomination. And it better be more than the one about how her husband played around with the intern, because that's his story.
Gore lost because he never told his story. He's back again because he told it in Inconvenient Truth. For a guy who can't deliver a punch line, he's got us caring again, because he does.
Kerry lied about his story. Maybe that's his story.
Obama has the lead and I don't see anyone gaining on him. He's a story teller. If he can tell his own, maybe he can tell ours.