President-elect Barack Obama

'A New Beginning'

The president-elect today:

"And so, in this uncertain world, the time has come for a new beginning - a new dawn of American leadership to overcome the challenges of the 21st century, and to seize the opportunities embedded in those challenges."

That clinches it for me. The Obama agenda is going to be labeled the "New Beginning" -- to follow the historical precedent of the "New Deal" and the "New Frontier." I would be surprised if this wasn't the theme of his inaugural address next month. (Here's my first siting of the phrase.)

ADDING... President Kennedy announcing the New Frontier during his 1960 acceptance speech:

We stand at the edge of a New Frontier—the frontier of unfulfilled hopes and dreams, a frontier of unknown opportunities and beliefs in peril. Beyond that frontier are uncharted areas of science and space, unsolved problems of peace and war, unconquered problems of ignorance and prejudice, unanswered questions of poverty and surplus.