Transcript for the Piece Audio version of Hope in '08? What About Hope in '68?

Track 1: The weekend before the Oregon primary, I stand among 75,000 people crammed together in a park alongside the Willamette River in downtown Portland, waiting to hear presidential hopeful Barack Obama speak.

[Obama rally sounds, Portland, Oregon 5/18/2004]

Track 2: I?ve never gone to hear a presidential candidate speak, but this is an event I can?t miss. Nor can the other thousands of people who have waited hours in long lines that snake through downtown Portland. When Obama finally comes on stage with his wife and two daughters, a complex mix of excitement, hope, belief and disbelief, churning within me, merges into a swirling wave of energy rising from the crowd.

Track 3: I have been living in Obama Land for months now. His campaign signs adorn yards, windows and car bumpers everywhere I go. Obamamania

[1960s protest sounds]

Track 4: . Forty years ago in 1968, at the height of the Vietnam WarI was in college, my friends and I were totally disillusioned by both presidential candidates?Hubert Humphrey and Richard Nixon.

[sounds of convention chaos and street protests]

Track 5:, we protested,. Our slogan was: ?Vote with your feet, vote in the street!? With Bobby Kennedy?s assassination that June, there was no longer a candidate that filled us with hope What we wanted was a revolution.

Track 6:

Track 7: Some of my old political comrades from the 60s still feel disillusioned To them Obama represents the imperial interests that they have been trying to overthrow for 40 years.

But others have stirrings of hope

Hilton Obenzinger: One of the things that Obama has done, which is unique, is to talk about organizing from the bottom up and for there to be a mass movement.

Track 8: Hilton Obenzinger was one of a hundred students, along with myself, who occupied the president?s office at Columbia University in the spring of 1968, during a strike that shut down the entire campus.

HO: When there?s a mass movement anything can happen, pressure to push him in different directions.

.

Track 11: What gives my generation of old activists hope in this campaign is not the politics of some titular leader, Barack Obama, but the energy that his campaign has generated, a movement that has coalesced that can take a life of its own.

LM: It?s the idea that things could change and it?s the idea that we all can make some difference slowly but steadily and that the tide can move.

Track 12: Laurie McLaine isa radical lesbian feminist like other 60s activists she, recognizes

Barack Obama: The journey will be difficult, the road will be long. I face this challenge with profound humility and knowledge of my own limitations but I also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people because if we are willing to work for it and fight for it and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now we will be able to look back and tell our children this was the moment, this was the time that we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves and our highest ideals. Thank you Minnesota. God bless you. God bless the U.S.A