Richard Wagner scored his first triumph as an operatic composer when his third opera, Rienzi, took Dresden by storm in 1842.

The opera takes place in Rome during the 14th Century. The people of Rome, exasperated by the endless bloody struggle for power between the noble houses of Orsini and Colonna, turn –- literally -– to a man on a white horse to deliver them. They rally to a charismatic commoner named Cola di Rienzi, who promises to suppress the rapacious nobles, end corruption and civil strife and restore the glories of the Roman Republic.

Too romantic a scenario for American politics in the 21st Century? No doubt. But reading the recaps of Sen. Barack Obama’s speech at the Jefferson-Jackson dinner in Iowa last week last week recalled the opera to my mind.

I noted in particular the following paragraphs from the senator’s speech:

Our moment is now!

I am not in this race to fulfill some longheld ambitions or because I believe it's somehow owed to me. I never expected to be here. I always knew this journey was improbable. I am running in this race because of of what Dr. King called "the fierce urgency of now." Because I believe that there’s such a thing as being too late, and that hour is almost upon us.

By all accounts, it was a spellbinding performance that generated an enormous ovation at the end.

Sen. Obama apparently believes that the American people are fed up with both the ongoing Bush-Clinton dynastic warfare and the hooliganism that currently passes for national political discourse. They want a change. They want an end to mudslinging and the zero-sum politics that inevitably produces gridlock and frustration. They want a return to old-fashioned civic virtue, political pragmatism and the kind of constructive democracy that gets things done.

If Obama is right, he may even now become the black man on the white horse who rides it all the way to the White House.

Maestro –- strike up the overture to Rienzi, if you please.