Our Change is a Renewal

From ABC, on Republicans for Obama:

Former Iowa Republican Rep. Jim Leach endorsed Barack Obama on Tuesday, saying that the Illinois senator's platform is rooted in "old American values that are as much a part of the Republican as the Democratic tradition."

"Barack Obama's platform is a call for change," said Leach. "But the change that he so gracefully is articulating is more renewal than departure."

...

Chafee, who left the GOP in March so that he could vote for Obama in the Rhode Island Democratic primary, criticized McCain for changing his stance on the Bush tax cuts.

"I served with McCain and we were the only two Republicans to vote against the Bush tax cuts," said Chafee, referring to a Senate vote in 2001. "He says now he would make them permanent. It's a different John McCain."

The former Rhode Island senator also charged that the Bush administration has damaged U.S. credibility on torture, wiretapping, and carbon-dioxide regulation.

Hauser said she wants to see the war in Iraq ended in a responsible way, adding that she fears that McCain would represent a "third Bush term."

"It's difficult to walk away from your nominee but you have to put your country first," said Hauser.

I agree completely with the idea that Obama's change is, in fact, a returning to America's best traditions. It's not a departure from American norms, it is the renewal of those American norms after a Bush Administration that took the U.S. on a radical departure from what had been our mainstream. Once again, America can be that shining city on the hill.