They say that this is not like 1968. Well my tye dye shirt and dandelion wine would respectfully like to disagree with that.

Ken Burns, the documentary filmmaker, a New Hampshire resident who's endorsed Obama, said in an interview the day before the primary that Obama's anti-Iraq war stance from the start made him comparable to McCarthy, who led a short-lived but galvanizing crusade against Johnson and the Vietnam War. But Burns said Obama's broader appeal made him a Kennedy-esque figure. Burns said that, if elected, Obama had the potential to be a Lincoln or a Franklin D. Roosevelt.

"He is the embodiment of our wish for ourselves, his ability to transcend the same-old same-old," Burns said. "He's a wonderful messenger who carries a complicated message to the rest of us of what we want to be . . . of a whole legacy of promise."

Curtis Gans, the director of the American University's Center for the Study of the American Electorate — and McCarthy's former staff director — isn't drawn to those comparisons. In 1968, Gans argued, McCarthy and Robert Kennedy did something bigger, because they crusaded against a sitting president of their own political party.

Gans also is less convinced of the historical importance of this election year or the meaning of Obama's vision.

What Mr. Gans seems to not be taking into account with this article is that we do have a historical change happening right now in 2008.

We also have an unpopular war, an unpopular President, and substantial domestic problems, that all portend a need for real earth shaking change.

We also have discovered that our vaunted democracy is broken! We have watched elections in America that have clearly been stolen, manufactured evidence to support an illegal war used against our populace, and a Republican machine drunk with power that has desperately tried to take away our vote, our privacy, and even our freedom.

How is that not a desperate call for change?

And the reason that Obama is the right candidate to bring about this change is that his soul is not bought and paid for. He is not a part of the corporate structure that has led this country so far down the wrong path. He looks like the future, and not like the past. He knows what to say, how to say it, and it clear that he means it.

He is a man who comes from a bi-racial union, has lived overseas, has struggled with his own demons, and emerged a better, more connected, human being.

He is the very face of change.

So Mr. Gans, look again. I think that if you close your eyes and listen with your heart you will know that something is happening here.