Not that voters are precisely wagging their tails in empathy with the Big Rich who squandered so many big bucks on high living during the boom. Not that foreclosures and high gasoline prices, along with rising prices for groceries, don't assail the (relatively) poorer classes because I assure they do.
No, the point is that if a presidential candidate, at a moment of severe national stress, can't do better than propose the absurd for the of discomfiting the man whose job he wants -- well, what can he do?
Obamamania has always been about hope and change -- of which we certainly could use some, assuming they came in a form calculated to improve the way we live. From a Harvard man, one expects a little bit better than Obama has lately been delivering. True, he may yet find his footing and move forward again. It's a looong campaign. For now, the colt makes his equine competition look better without their having had really to exert themselves.
Obamamania is about salesmanship: the call to sink into the driver's seat (switching metaphors from one transportational mode to another) and careen off the dealership lot without asking too many questions. Such as: How much gas you got in the tank? And did someone inspect this thing?
The looong campaign is about inspecting this thing -- the Obama movement -- from top to bottom, looking for rents in the upholstery and listening for pings in the engine.
Well, guess what?
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