Preeta Bansal, former Solicitor General of New York and special counsel for the Clinton White House, wrote this op-ed in the upcoming issue of India Abroad:

This is a Presidential race like no other. On the Democratic side, we
have the choice of exceptional candidates: intelligent public servants
who are passionate in their commitments to a strong and inclusive
America. But we have neither the luxury nor constraint of making our
choice this time based purely on policy differences, because the
Democratic candidates have laid out detailed plans and prescriptions
that are largely similar. So instead, in this election, other qualities
– especially a candidate’s character and ability to unite Americans of
all persuasions around common policy goals – play a larger role than
usual.

Indeed, we are offered, for the first time in many decades, the choice
of a candidate of extraordinary character, leadership, judgment,
integrity, and inspiration – a combination and range of qualities that
is rare to find in someone operating at the highest political levels.
And so we can make our choice in this election based on a rare
convergence of both our minds and our hearts.

Barack Obama is the right man for the Presidency, and his time is now.
He has been a phenomenon for more than 20 years, when I first
encountered him at Harvard Law School. But he is not the kind of
flash-in-the-pan phenomenon that some of his rivals had been hoping for
and expecting. He is the real thing.

I worked in the Clinton White House and Administration, and was very
proud to do so. But I left Washington for New York after the first term
in 1996 because I came to feel that it would be easy within our
nation’s capital to become a “moon” – one who basks in the reflected
light of others and feels important because one is in an important
position, around important people, or dealing with important issues. I
felt that it was hard (and rare), hanging around the Beltway, to become
a “sun” who had discovered and cultivated the inner light within
oneself, and who came to Washington having something truly unique and
creative to offer and wanting to extend that light outward to others.

Now, twelve years later, I can truly say that we have the option of electing a sun, and he is Barack Obama.

Much has been said about Senator Obama’s extraordinary gifts of oratory
and inspiration. But less has been said about the inner strengths and
qualities that are manifested in his outer sheen. Unlike his rival, who
“found [her] own voice” just a few weeks ago in the snows of New
Hampshire, Barack has lived his life of service from the inside out. He
knows who he is, and has a moral compass that will guide him and our
nation well. He pursues politics not as an end or as an art form in
itself, but as a necessary means to achieve higher ends. He understands
that the Presidency is not simply about being battle-tested and ready
to take on old opponents from day one, but is also about having the
self-awareness and reach to achieve results by inspiring new
participants and creating new majorities and alliances.

And so this campaign for the Presidency is not – as he frequently says
in his public appearances – about him; it is about us. It is not a
vehicle for him to find his voice; it is a catalyst for inspiring
Americans to overcome our doubts and fears to express our collective
voice. He talks not about what “I will do for you,” but about what “we
will achieve together.” He will help all of us, together, usher in a
whole new era of politics, one in which we can truly be inspired to
reclaim our sense of active, empowered citizenship. In a world that has
experienced too often the failures and dangers of top-down political
structures, the prospect of revitalizing American democracy through
active, common-sense citizen involvement from the bottom up, is the
change we need to see in the world.

We hear much about candidates’ relative experience and inexperience in
terms only of their years in Washington or in politics. But we hear
little of candidates’ life experiences outside of politics, or the grit
and stamina and grace they may have displayed in getting to where they
are from where they came.

More than any other major figure on the American political scene,
Senator Obama’s political outlook is shaped by truly having been a
citizen of the world. He was born to a black Kenyan father, and a white
mother from Kansas. A self-made man, he was raised by his single mother
and maternal grandparents in an environment without many material
advantages. His paternal African grandmother still lives in a Kenyan
hut without running water and electricity. Raised in the multicultural
environments of Hawaii and Indonesia, Senator Obama can passionately
engage with, actively listen to and respectfully speak with people of
all backgrounds and faiths.

Senator Obama is a man of faith, but an inclusive sense of faith – a
faith that tempers his great intellect with humility, not a faith that
aims to cover up a lack of intellect with false certitude. His office
displays a portrait of Gandhi, and he is moved by theologians such as
Reinhold Niebuhr, who coincidentally expressed my favorite sentiment
ever: that power without love is brutality, but love without power is
mere sentimentality. As someone who travels the world as a U.S.
diplomat, including to many predominantly Muslim countries, I can
attest just how critical Senator Obama’s unique life experience is in
formulating and projecting a forceful but intelligent American foreign
policy that above all protects America but also commands the respect of
the world. As one noted commentator wrote recently, even apart from his
articulated policies for enhancing America’s standing in the world, his
mere election to the Presidency would lead to an immediate “rebranding”
of America and increase immeasurably our “soft power” in the world.

The Senator’s unique life experience, combined with his correct and
consistent judgment about the Iraq war from the beginning, hearken back
to another great leader who was challenged as having a “thin” resume
because he had served in the Illinois state legislature, practiced law,
and returned to politics to serve only one term as a representative in
Congress before deciding to run for President. That leader, of course,
was Abraham Lincoln. But after making a name for himself in the
presidential campaign by exhibiting the courage to speak out against
the deeply accepted practice of slavery, Lincoln was able, as
president, to take the side of the nation’s better angels and to change
the course of American history.

In contrast to many of his opponents, who have built their lives and
ambitions in Beltway politics, Senator Obama is not someone who
approaches politics as an end. He is a true public servant who, despite
dazzling intellectual achievements – including being President of the
Harvard Law Review and at the very top of his class at Harvard Law
School – gave up every lucrative and prestigious opportunity to go back
to Chicago where he had been a community organizer for many years.

Yet while rooted in the experience of organizing working class
communities in Chicago – and while personally and deeply aware of
conditions of global poverty – he has the intelligence and judgment to
speak comfortably with leaders in London, Mumbai, Brussels or Wall
Street about economic theory and foreign policy.

Senator Obama – through the multitude of his life experiences and the
calm, respectful style of his leadership – is someone who naturally and
instinctively bridges so many divides. He connects and brings together
the global background of his youth with the local communities he
organized as an adult; the ordinary experiences of working class people
in America and globally with the perspectives of highly educated
academics, policymakers and professionals; the blue states of Democrats
with the red states from which his mother and grandparents came.
Because governing and tackling the major challenges facing our nation
these days require more than a bare majority of support, it is
essential that we elect someone who in style and substance is able and
willing to reach out beyond the traditional Democratic “base”, and who
can inspire large numbers of American citizens to transcend the
often-bitter attempts in our politics to divide us.

Let me add, finally, that there is sometimes an attempt to perceive or
create divisions between immigrants and African Americans. But we are
all beneficiaries of the struggles to overcome this nation’s racial
injustices. The very reason for our presence in this country is the
1965 Immigration Act, which eliminated the last remaining formal color
line in the US laws – the exclusion of Asians that appeared in the
immigration laws since the late 1800s. Those legal hurdles came down
following the successes of the civil rights struggles of the 1960s, and
the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act.

So as we try to work to clean up America’s image and policy toward the
world and its policies at home, I can think of no better leader than
Senator Obama, who – in part because of who he is and where he came
from, but also because of what he believes and what he has accomplished
– would give America a whole new fresh chance. He truly believes in
Gandhi’s approach that we must lead by the example of our ideals and
our actions – including by fostering economic opportunity for each
individual, and by respecting pluralism and restoring the rule of law
at home and abroad. His light has a transformative potential at this
critical juncture in our nation’s and our world’s affairs. He has the
character, intellect, judgment, experience, integrity, and leadership
to lead our nation well.