Main Street U.S.A.: Trials and the Celebrity-in-Chief

You could tell at the Democratic National Convention what was afoot. That Hollywood set the party constructed for him -- the Temple of Obama, Republicans called it. The Republicans, who were about to nominate an old warhorse as opposed to a young colt, knew what was coming at them and cannily inserted Sarah Palin into the proceedings. But the financial collapses x-ed out that gambit.

Such is electoral politics in the age of Omnipresent Media. A candidate has to wow 'em -- make 'em laugh, hope, cry, dream. Alas for the process, the candidate, once chosen, has to have some idea of what he's doing. We can likely all agree that Barack Obama had and has some idea as to what he would like to do. Or is it safer to say "some vision"?

Obama has failed, fairly dismally so far, to match interior vision with exterior reality. How do we come up with an extra trillion dollars to finance a federal health care takeover, and why are we even talking about it with deficits soaring? And how do you convince 300 million people in a matter of months that the health care system that most find acceptable is a ruin and wreck in need of replacement? Those would be just a few of the questions crying out for answers, which our celebrity-in-chief may or may not bring us in coming days.

A McCain voter feels a confession coming on: an odd but necessary one. The confession is that he feels more than a little sorry for Barack Obama, a president seemingly in over his head at a moment of exquisite need for a pro, a vet, a warhorse if you will.