Who Else Does This?

It's worth reminding ourselves:

Mr. Obama’s aides said more than 20,000 people registered for the event through the campaign’s Web site. While it was impossible to determine even a reliable attendance estimate, view from the vantage point of an elevated lift seemed to reveal the gathering as one of the largest campaign events of the year.

Which other candidate can even begin to get 20,000 people for a rally in September the year before any actual votes are taken? Washington may have already decided Clinton has won; but the country hasn't. You're seeing an enormous demand for real change, for a different kind of politics, for a way out of the polarized boomer world. I don't know if Obama can channel this effectively. I do know it's real, and the most powerful force in these coming elections.

(Photo: Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty.)