Portrait of the Candidates as Younger People (Dennis)

I found these two articles of the Democratic candidates from less turbulent times. The first is an article the NY Times ran this summer (those of you as obsessive as me probably already saw it) about letters Hillary wrote to a high school friend during her college years. I just find this article so interesting because of the limited view we get of Hillary the person (I think this is why the crying moment she had was so powerful), and so, for younger people, she seems a cold and distant figure.

Here she is someone I can identify with. She seems like someone I would have met in college and liked. So it's challenging to reconcile her with the schemey public figure I dislike. I suppose part of it is that I am much harder on powerful public figures than I would be with a more vulnerable Wellesley undergrad. Another part, I think, is that she has had a difficult public life and has withstood a lot of criticism, some justified some not, and that hardens you to an extent.

The other is an profile of Obama from when he first ran for state senate. It's amazing how similar he sounds here to the Obama on the campaign trail, if a little bit harder edged.