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It may be political dreaming, but if Democratic senators Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois could find it in themselves to embrace each other, it could produce a two-decade nightmare for the Republican Party. President George W. Bush and his GOP have earned it.

A Clinton-Obama ticket — Team America — would be pure political genius, returning Karl Rove to Romper Room status. But most importantly, it would energize America and return our country to a state of belief, hope and promise.

That's Clinton for president and Obama for vice president. All they have to do is get past the last four weeks and think about how Democratic unity is the fuel that powers the engine of a progressive America.

Such a ticket heals all wounds: gender, race and fracturing the party. It binds old guard with emerging young blood — each thirsty for dramatic change in Washington and, together, capable of delivering it. It melds idealism, experience and passion to make change realistic and achievable.

Such a ticket bridges those who have the fresh, daring ideas with those who have the political battle scars and experience to make a new political contraption fly. It settles all scores, instantly unifying two of the party's and country's most important constituencies — women and black voters — and it sets the stage, at least, for the first woman and, ultimately, the first black presidents.

It gives this still very racist nation time to adapt and change, dealing first with the easier of its two worst prejudices, sexism.

Most importantly, it would be a killer ticket, one capable of delivering in November a real and broad mandate of ideas, leadership and vision that contrasts dramatically with the utter failure of regressive GOP policies and Bush incompetence of the last seven years.

Clinton-Obama could swamp the GOP's long-standing, belligerent and politically destructive Southern strategy, which has used vestigial racism to keep a conservative lock on the White House, the Congress or both for 30 years.

It would be pure, poetic political justice and finally break the 50-50 divide. It could set the stage for Democratic leadership for the next two decades, offering Obama eight years of on-the-job-training and the opportunity to succeed Clinton in 2016 with his own opportunity for greatness.

But this is less a partisan dream than a progressive one. It is a chance for America to reclaim its multicolored soul, shed its red-versus-blue mentality and live up to its mandate of liberty for all — women and blacks, as well as angry white men with guns.

Obama need not worry. The agenda is so long and the work so Herculean, that there still will be plenty for him to tackle in his own right. But first he would have to bow to party, platform and progress — the necessary ingredients for the unity and change he so eloquently evokes.

Certainly, the nation has had its fling with the conservatives' repressive agenda, which has failed us miserably, first under Ronald Reagan and now under Bush.

It has mired us in a war in Iraq that should never have occurred yet has claimed the lives of thousands.

It leaves us tragically behind the curve in dealing with what may be mankind's greatest crisis, global warming.

Compromised by fear, we have allowed our military and intelligence agencies to torture and compromise our birthrights and Constitutional principles with high-sounding but low-minded laws, such as the Patriot Act.

We are increasingly shackled to the gas pump and to our plastic cards, becoming not just swamped by personal debt but also by our burdensome status as the biggest debtor nation in human history.

We have swallowed the despicable notion that the private health enterprise is more sacred than the health, welfare and lives of our citizens.

And in our ultimate greed, we have allowed the wealth and welfare of future generations of Americans — who have had no say in our wanton consumption, cheap money, low taxes, lazy national work ethic and unprecedented $9 trillion national debt — to be auctioned off to the lowest bidders.

Fixing this national tragedy is going to take much more than Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama alone. It's going to take a team — the most dynamic presidential ticket in American history: a white women, a black man and their unprecedented ability to unify, lead and engage all Americans.

To elect them in November is to take the first giant step along a long and arduous path not just of "change" in America but also of the resurrection of American ideals and ethics — the American Dream.