Los Angeles Times

Accept it: Politics are boring

Before I started writing speeches for Barack Obama, his words had already changed my life. On the morning of Jan. 3, 2008, I was a typical college senior, barely interested in politics. That night, I saw the long-shot presidential candidate address his supporters after winning the Iowa caucuses.

"Faced with impossible odds, people who love this country can change it," he declared.

It was the electoral equivalent of love at first sight.

Over the next eight years, I was reminded many times that politics can be transcendent. I was in an Ohio campaign office when America elected its first black

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