I could also sense how hard the Clinton camp was working to undermine Senator Obama's main theme, that a campaign based on hope and healing could unify, rather than further polarize, the country.

So there was the former president chastising the press for the way it was covering the Obama campaign and saying of Mr. Obama's effort: "The whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I've ever seen."

And there was Mrs. Clinton telling the country we don't need "false hopes," and taking cheap shots at, of all people, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

We'd already seen Clinton surrogates trying to implant the false idea that Mr. Obama might be a Muslim, and perhaps a drug dealer to boot.

...He was drawing young people into the process and exciting people across party lines.

The big deal was that Senator Obama, defying every stereotype, was making it easier for people, frustrated by the status quo, to dare to hope and believe in the country again.

...Pride, the nuns told me in grammar school, goeth before a fall. It may not be fair that the Clintons seem to be forgiven every sin while Mr. Obama's margin of error is tiny at best.