anne applebaum argues that Obama's blackness, far from being an insurmountable hurdle to being elected President, is actually an advantage. She makes the interesting point that Obama's colour is in intrinsic visual signifier of change in a year when everyone is looking for change. Hillary can make all the arguments she wants about experience being necessary to produce real change - but hey, there's a black guy on stage.
UPDATE: so it seems there are also advantages to being a woman. Like you can cry on TV and people say 'Aw, I think I'm gonna vote for that nice lady' instead of 'What a wuss'.
OK, Barack just called for some advice. Here's what I told him:
Barack, losing New Hampshire could be the making of you. I think you always suspected, somewhere in the back of your mind, that there was something ethereal about all this adulation, and that the heaviness of this year's politics had not melted away forever. Well, better that the bubble bursts now than on February 5th.
so now you're just a man again, which is just how you like it. Let the American people take a really good look at you, and compare you to your opponent, and make up their minds without an overheated media trying to push them in one direction or the other. Your message of change is still the right one. But now the man behind that message needs to be fleshed out. You should focus your efforts in the coming weeks on telling people about what you've done to create positive change in people's lives. Show them the man on Chicago's South Side who regained his self-respect thanks to the work you did as a community activist. Show them the mom who kept her kids as a result of your work as a civil rights lawyer. Show the people whose lives were transformed by the legislation you passed in the state and federal senates. The voters fall in love with your message when they hear it. Now they want to be convinced you're the man that can deliver on it.
