And despite the fervently held views of their foes, neither Obama nor Romney is particularly doctrinaire either. This year the choice for President comes at a time when specific ideas about relieving and growing the middle class — education reform and access, for instance — seem less important than the present and the future of the overall economy. The most basic requirement of the American Dream is a job. In 1980 Reagan broke away from Jimmy Carter after asking, "Are you better off today than you were four years ago?" Romney will pose that question again and again; Obama will talk about how it takes longer than three years to reverse a decade of decline. Obama will say Romney favors the rich; Romney will say he wants to create a country where everybody can once again dream of getting rich. The winner will be the one who convinces just enough of us that he, not the other guy, can fuel economic growth. It may not be an edifying conversation, but it's the conversation we're about to have. And both men will talk about the American Dream, but no single politician can restore the faith of our fathers and mothers. That's up to all of us.
We are stronger the wider we open our arms. Our dreams are more powerful when they are shared by others in our time. And we are the only ones who can create a climate for the American Dream to survive another generation, then another and another. "If the American dream is to come true and to abide with us," Adams wrote in 1931, "it will, at bottom, depend on the people themselves." True then, and true now.
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