A victory for Obama - or even McCain - doesn’t count out a female President for all time, or even “our lifetime”. Your friend sounds like the victim of a last-ditch effort: while you’re at it, ask her if she’s interested in some ABC Learning shares.

Personally I think electing a white woman would be more of a step forward than electing a black man, but that’s just one factor to consider and most of the others favour Obama.

you’d be amazed, mate! By the way, if the populace ever had the temerity to demand that YOU face an election, I bet your diminuitive stature would become an issue. People are so cruel.

Sham and the Evil Dwarf would erect whole mighty columns devoted to the SIZE issue: their column inches would expand. Even without using those nifty column enlargers or Niagra Pills. Size would matter.

So sad, so demeaning, so infantile. Your flashy scarlet Tyrant-mobile wouldn’t save you. The upwardly mobile would leave you deflated: from impo’tant to impotent.

So, eschew elections, is my advice, Tiny.

inconceivable!

Look, if it stays deadlocked, can they draft you?

I think the whole dynamic of the campaign will change pretty quickly as soon as Obama wraps up the nomination, and that’s likely to be well before the convention. It’s starting to change now.

Hillary, I think, is playing an endgame largely designed to maintain the Clintonistas’ influence in the Democratic Party - hence all the leaks about her wanting to be offered the V-P slot (and suggestions that she would decline but it’s about respect), aspiring to be Majority Leader in the Senate, etc. I think at the top level most of what is happening now is about carving up the expected fruits of victory. So many of the establishment Democrats tied themselves to Hillary so early they can’t credibly back away now and things like Cabinet slots, involvement in the general election campaign etc. might be the price to be paid for “unifying the party”.

Clinton doesn’t really own up to being white woman, ie. black women never quite enter the picture. For the Hillary camp, gender is white.

There was a bit of flak flying around about this a while back too, with Clintonistas claiming or insinuating that black women were gender traitors by ostensibly privileging their race over their gender. Not exactly a smart move given all the various cans of worms around race in the States and indeed the huge fissure lines within the feminist movement. I’d provide some links but this sort of thing started making me really depressed when it started happening so I didn’t save any of the posts or articles!

The racial polarisation angle grew out of the (unexpected, remember?) tightness of the race and some ill-considered remarks on Bill Clinton’s part.

I’m not going to give Bill (or Hillary!) a pass on this one, but I think it was always gonna happen. And Obama was always going to be competitive, despite what Mark Penn and Bill Clinton might have assumed!

And I wouldn’t worry too much about the vulcanism, it peaked a month or so back and is winding down.