Rightists with wit and humour are so much more fun to fence with…..

Yep, EC, it was a fun read!

Geoff at 70, certainly go along with KP’s concluding para.In America these days, if you are a presidential aspirationalist, then you must subscribe to a popularly correct brand of “pie in the sky when you die” in order to chow down nights on a regular basis at 1600 Penn.
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“I find the manner in which they’ve been running their campaign sort of depressing, lately. It was interesting in the debate, Sen. Clinton saying ‘Don’t feed the American people false hopes. Get a reality check, you know?’ I mean, you can picture JFK saying, ‘We can’t go to the moon, it’s a false hope. Let’s get a reality check.’ It’s not, sort of, I think, what our tradition has been.”

So says Obama, the candidate for hopes and dreams.
I believe it was The Gmork, who at the end of the film “The Never Ending Story”, told Atreyou moments before the young warrior wasted him, that he was The Power behind The Nothing, and it was his job as a Gmork to rob the citizens of Fantasia of their hopes and dreams.

But why, said Atreyou.

Because when people have no hopes and dreams, they are easier to control.

http://crookedtimber.org/2008/01/05/huckmentum/

The GOPpers don’t have an electable candidate. Having jumped from the political woodpile with much aplomb and flourish, Obama’s is pulling support from the woodwork as he gathers momentum and lets his charisma do the talkin’ for him. Obama has an Elmer Gantry-like quality. He speaks the language of hope and offers the possibility of real change to youth, to cynics and to the systematically opressed, many of whom are scrambling for voter registration for the first time as the record turnout at Iowa showed. Expect a similar turnout in N.H. this tuesday.

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2008/01/05/democrats_debate.html

The link seems to indicate that the cat from Illinois got the cream in the nationwide msm debate just concluded.

Re Baroma: you ain’t seen nuthin’ yet!

j_p_z if you’re lurking, I’d sure appreciate your opinion on the latest razzamatazz.

Word. It’s a front-runner’s contest.

George: Hey, Martha, getta load o’ this! You’ll never believe who’s booked the Presidential Suite at the Hotel New Hampshire.

http://rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/new_hampshire/election_2008_new_hampshire_democratic_primary

I dont know enough about American politics to know what the implications are: but I can tell you Obama is an absolutely electrifying speaker. Next best rheotirically (and the most progressive, it would seem) was Edwards.

Everyone else on either side was pretty dull to listen to.

I gather Clinton will be hard to beat, but boy, did it feel like the next pres was speaking when Obama took the podium.

As for me, i was a Hillary fan, but Obama is growing on me.

In virtually every demographic category where Obama found his greatest strength in Iowa, New Hampshire’s electorate has at least as many or more of those voters, based on a comparison of the entrance polls from Thursday’s caucuses in Iowa and from the 2004 Democratic primary in Hampshire.

Take independents. They constituted 20 percent of the caucus electorate in Iowa on Thursday, but four years ago in New Hampshire they constituted nearly half (48 percent) of the Democratic electorate.

Older voters were Clinton’s friends in Iowa, not Obama’s, and in the caucuses they accounted for 22 percent of the participants. In New Hampshire four years ago, voters over age 65 represented just 11 percent of thee Democratic electorate.

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2008/01/04/new_hampshire_demographics_look_favorable_to_obama.html

Things sure have gotten interesting, as they say in America.

The above market quotes suggest that as far as the Presidency goes, the GOPpers are rooted. I am of similar mind. All their candidates have “baggage” that renders them unelectable.

Hillary looked like a loser after Iowa, whereas the Junior Senator from Illinois fair sparkled. Americans are attracted to winners in ways that they themselves have no difficulty understanding. If Obama can Elmer Gantry a swathe of younguns and Independents in N.H. to come vote for him, then he’ll nudge HRC for favouritism. About the time El Rodente bit the dust downunder, Obama was backable at just under double figure odds.
Edward’s best chance at this stage is VP, an office that under present arrangements would give him considerable power.
An Obama-Edwards ticket is one I think Americans voters will buy.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/01/03/giuliani-camps-out-in-new_n_79621.html

You can really see why everyone thinks the GOP has a pathetic field, and McCain’s being talked up again. A bit of gravitas and apparently clean and sane, though he’s certainly not the “moderate” he’s often hailed as.