If we won, I thought, it would mean that my U.S. Senate campaign hadn’t just been dumb luck. If we won, it would mean that what had led me into politics wasn’t just a pipe dream, that the America I believed in was possible, that the democracy I believed in was within reach. If we won, it would mean that I wasn’t alone in believing that the world didn’t have to be a cold, unforgiving place, where the strong preyed on the weak and we inevitably fell back into clans and tribes, lashing out against the unknown and huddling against the darkness. If these beliefs were made manifest, then my own life
...more
