OP-ED: Rebranding the U.S. With Obama, By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF, New York Times, October 22, 2008

Nice piece by Kristof that echoes what I've been saying in speeches for more than a year now: going post-Boomer in the U.S. White House gets us a chance to recast our relationship with China by reaching past the 4th generation and starting to connect with the 5th and 6th generations. Kristof expands that sort of argument to big chunks of the world. I agree with his analysis here and the underlying notion: in our moment of financial distress, it's a neat trick to instantly rebrand ourselves from distant and harsh global authority figure to something much more in line with the frontier-integrating nature of our age--the self-made man who rises to incredible heights and beats the prevailing odds. The shift taps into a lot of things that the world has always loved about America. The value of that shift, which would not occur with McCain whatsoever (and could possibly even backslide given his strong identification with punitive warfare) should not be underestimated. America is indeed rebranding itself for the age, whether it wants to or not. Our success in spreading globalization simply forces this function. And if we listen to the world in this way, our recovery back to where we once belonged is greatly accelerated. The alternative? What the last three years of the Bush administration has felt like internationally. (Thanks: Tyler Durden)