He could announce his running mate for the general election.

Imagine an older, wiser running mate with vast military / foreign policy experience standing beside Obama. Now try to make voters believe that an Obama administration is not capable of leading the country.

I know that it would be highly irregular to declare victory without having acquired the required number of delegates, but it is becoming clearer that Clinton won’t be able to overcome his lead before the convention. And why should Obama allow Clinton try to overturn the will of the states by co-opting more superdelegate votes?

This might sound unfair to some. Surely the primary season should continue to its natural conclusion? Well, it still can, except now Clinton is made to look more like a hanger-on who is staying in the race for her own good and not the good of the party. The sooner this battle ends, the better for the Democratic Party. If Clinton had the lead that Obama continues to enjoy, don’t you think that her campaign would be putting pressure on Obama to bow out for the good of the party?

It might be a disappointment for those people who are still holding out for the Obama-Clinton dream-ticket. Well, surely Obama would be much more important to Clinton than the other way around. Clinton is already disliked by half of the country, why should Obama pick her? Her supporters and the democratic base are going to fully support Obama against McCain. The idea of an Obama-Clinton ticket has always seemed non-plausible.

It is time for Obama to stand up and declare this contest over. It is time to take on John McCain head on.

He can make himself look like the winner by simply acting like the winner.

Without a wish, without a will,
I stood upon that silent hill
And stared into the sky until
My eyes were blind with stars and still
I stared into the sky.
Ralph Hodgson (1871 – 1962) English poet

I came across this time-lapse video of the Northern Lights, which I think makes it pretty clear why people can be so inspired by the nighttime sky.

The EJI is an amazing organisation that provides legal assistance to death row inmates in Alabama. There are currently hundreds of death row inmates across America without any legal representation. As Mr. Stevenson said, “They are literally dying for legal representation”. There is no public defender system in Alabama. Most lawyers who take death row cases are given a maximum of $1000 per case. The average length of a capital murder trial in Alabama is 3 days. The average length of the penalty phase is 3 hours. According to Mr. Stevenson, the proven error rate for death penalty convictions is now about 1 in 8.

I think everyone at the lecture was pretty horrified by those numbers, but inspired by Mr. Stevenson’s commitment to justice for everyone. He brings hope to people without hope, often just by turning up and listening to them. Mr. Stevenson believes that his greatest achievement is “continuing to struggle when struggle doesn’t make sense, believing we can make a difference.”

He spoke about the first time he ever met a death row inmate. The law firm that he was working with as an intern sent him to meet the convict just to tell him that he would not be executed this year. He was terrified that the convict would ask questions about the case that he could not answer. However, it turned out that the convict started to cry tears of happiness when he heard the news. He was so happy just to know that he had another year of life and that he could now arrange for his family to come visit him.

Mr. Stevenson described the problems of the judicial system in Alabama as resulting from “a profound absence of hope”. The notion that the lives of death row inmates have no meaning. He said that he always felt the need to confront that kind of hopelessness. Quoting former Czech leader Vaclav Havel, he said that “the kind of hope that makes a difference is not a preference for optimism over pessimism. It’s not the notion that things will work out in the end. It’s not some naive expectation that in the end things will be good. The kind of hope that really makes a difference is none of those things, but rather an orientation of the spirit. It’s how we position ourselves in the face of hopelessness.”

One story that really moved me was about a woman named Ms. Williams.

Walter McMillan is a man who was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death for a crime that he did not commit. (The jury had actually sentenced him to life without parole, but the judge changed the verdict to the death penalty). Mr. Stevenson spoke of the sense of despair in the African American community to which Mr. McMillan belonged. Many of them had been with Mr. McMillan at the very moment when he was supposed to have committed the crime. The EJI found dramatic evidence of Mr. McMillan’s innocence, including a recording that the police had made (and kept!) of them forcing a key witness to frame Mr. McMillan for murder. This led to a court appeal, which eventually led to Mr. McMillan’s release.

Ms. Williams was an old African American woman who was selected by her peers to be one of only a few representatives from the African American community to be allowed to attend the appeal. She was so proud to be selected. However, when she saw that there was a German Shepherd at the entrance to the courtroom, she started to cry and shake with fear. All she could think about was Selma, Alabama, in 1965 when she was chased by police dogs for marching for the right to vote. She appologised to everyone and left the courthouse in tears.

The next day she returned to the courthouse. Her sister told Mr. Stevenson that she had been up all night praying for the strength to walk past the dog. Ms. Williams entered the building saying, over and over again, “I ain’t scared of no dog”. She walked up to the dog and said “I ain’t scared of no dog”. She then entered the courtroom, walked up to Mr. Stevenson and said, “I’m here.” She repeated, “I’m here.” When the judge entered the room, everybody stood up. When the judge sat down, everybody sat down. Except for Ms. Williams. She stood tall and said again, out loud, “I’m here.”

Mr. Stevenson understood that she was not saying that she was physically there. Rather, she was saying that, “I may be old, I may be poor, I may be black, but I’m here because I have this vision of justice that compels me to stand up to injustice.”

When Mr. McMillan was released from Alabama’s death row prison, the first thing he did was walk up to Ms. Williams. He gave her a big hug, and said “I’m here because you were there for me.”

Mr. Stevenson understands the imporance of saying “I’m here”, wherever you see an injustice. Both Ms. Williams and Mr. Stevenson are made of the kind of hope that makes ordinary people do extraordinary things.

I urge everyone to listen to this lecture that Mr. Stevenson gave a few years ago.

Last August, Obama, along with his wife Michelle, received a hero’s welcome in Kenya, where his father was from. Thousands of people lined the streets to catch a glimpse of him. I was very impressed to see that he took a HIV test in front of these crowds, in an attempt to break the stigma around the HIV/AIDS pandemic that is so prevalent in the region. He said, “If a United States senator can get tested, anyone can get tested”.

Last week Obama announced that he was running for president. He noted that there was something audacious about that:

“I recognize there is a certain presumptuousness – a certain audacity – to this announcement. I know I haven’t spent a lot of time learning the ways of Washington. But I’ve been there long enough to know that the ways of Washington must change.”

Obama might not win his party’s nomination for president, but I’m sure that his words and actions in the coming year will help to inspire people inside and outside of the USA to believe that there are better days ahead for all of us.

It is his “audacity of hope” that so many people are finding attractive. The recognition that every great change began as a hope in somebody’s mind.

“It’s the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs. The hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores.

The hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta.

The hope of a millworker’s son who dares to defy the odds.

The hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too.

Hope in the face of difficulty. Hope in the face of uncertainty. The audacity of hope!

In the end, that is God’s greatest gift to us, the bedrock of this nation. A belief in things not seen. A belief that there are better days ahead.”

Obama at the Democratic National Convention, 2004, Part 1:

Obama at the Democratic National Convention, 2004, Part 2: