I was 15 when I first saw Gene McCarthy. Four decades ago, he was the new promise.

It was 1968 and a time, like now, of resentment at war and Washington. Suddenly, in this philosophical Minnesota senator, was the hope of changing the status quo.

McCarthy got onto the radar in an early primary triumph, coming close to beating President Lyndon Johnson in New Hampshire. Everyone had assumed the same old faces were inevitable, but here was a fresh voice with a stirring vision. It was easy to get swept up.

I remember the feeling. When you’re young, you pour your hopes into someone making you believe it’s your time.

By late that summer, I got involved personally when friends got me to volunteer. I even cut my hair to be “clean for Gene,” as the mantra went.

It seems a similar fervor is now unfolding around Barack Obama.

We tend to assign roles to candidates. If there’s a good guy, someone has to play bad guy. When a candidate emerges as new, another gets labeled old.

After President Johnson dropped out, Vice President Hubert Humphrey got into the race. He was a progressive liberal, but he was tied to Johnson’s war. Just as importantly, because McCarthy had become the new hope, Humphrey was dismissed as status quo.

In 2008, it seems Obama is playing the role of McCarthy and Hillary Clinton is being cast as Humphrey.

The analogy isn’t perfect — Humphrey did win the nomination because the Democratic machine had more power then, but he lost to Richard Nixon because the party was fractured. Once you’re seen as yesterday’s pol, it’s hard to overcome that.

Still — the question holds: Is Obama the real thing?

I’m thinking back to other times when that feeling was in the air.

In 1972, we found a new “McCarthy.” His name was George McGovern, a South Dakota senator, and he too represented “our” time. Astonishingly, he got the Democratic nomination. But he made mistakes, first by dropping his vice-presidential pick after questions about his mental health were raised, then by going too far left, at one point saying he’d get on his knees to ask for peace from the North Vietnamese. McGovern was honorable, but it turned out we projected hope on someone who wasn’t an electable candidate. He was slaughtered in the general election.

In 1984, another compelling new face emerged out of New Hampshire.

His name was Gary Hart, a little known U.S. senator from Colorado, but he shocked everyone in that year’s primary by beating Walter Mondale, the “inevitable” candidate, by 10 points. Once again, the same roles were assigned — Hart was the inspirational face of the future, and Mondale, a former vice president, was cast as yesterday’s news.

Hart’s mantra was that his would be a campaign of “new ideas.” Though age 30 by then, I was swept up again. Soon after the New Hampshire primary, I took a train to hear him speak at Yale, his law school alma mater. I wanted him to be stirring and authentic. But oddly, he never mentioned how it all started at Yale, instead, sticking to a practiced script. I wasn’t surprised when, over the next months, he stumbled and faded.

And yet I have also seen those who soared early, and did succeed. I was too young to be aware of John Kennedy when he ran, but remember vividly all he had represented to the country after he was assassinated. I remember his brother Bobby Kennedy jumping late into the 1968 race, with some controversy, but still touching hearts in a way rare in politics. I’m still convinced he would have gone the distance due to his authenticity.

I was not a Ronald Reagan fan, but recognized in 1980 that he, too, had a gift for inspiring, and it proved lasting, and he won twice.

Hillary Clinton is realizing that such a gift is something you either have or you don’t. She has all but admitted she doesn’t, and has been trying, as others have in the past, to use credentials to beat the new candidate of hope. She indeed has exceptional credentials.

But there’s something in the American spirit that yearns for more than that, yearns to be moved by eloquence and vision, by an authentic disposition, and yes, by personal attractiveness.

No matter how good you are at policy, it’s hard to beat an opponent who has all those things.

At the moment, Obama seems to.

But I have seen candidates “seem to” before.

The question is this: Is he really an agent of hope, or is that just what people want him to be?

I’m guessing the most important factor in the coming campaign won’t be TV ads, fundraising, or even policy arguments, but who Barack Obama really is.

It will be an interesting race to watch.

mpatinkin@projo.com