Arianna Huffington: The 2008 Race for President and the Search for Our Better Selves

"Watching Sunday's Obama rally in Los Angeles, I was struck by a point both Michelle Obama and Maria Shriver made but that is rarely discussed during a presidential campaign: the importance of having someone in the Oval Office who can stir people to expect more of themselves than they otherwise would. It reminded me of a series of interviews I'd done years ago about what Americans are looking for in a president. The consensus opinion of the experts I talked to was that in the end our search for a great president is also a search for our better selves. It leaves us with a political litmus test that actually matters: Which presidential candidate can lead us to do more good than we think we're capable of?"