Barack Obama is the best presidential candidate that I've seen since I started paying attention to such things about 8 years ago (I was 11), and having studied the people who ran when I was younger and before I was born, he has most of those guys beat as well. He's a fresh face who is loved by the members of his party and not very hated by republicans, which is great. This week he has embarked on a historic (I guess) trip to the Middle East where in Iraq the prime minister and his vice president both said that December 31st, 2010 would be a good withdrawal date for US troops. So it appears they like him too. (Didn't hear that when McCain was over there.) More pluses: he's charismatic, Jesse Jackson doesn't like him, his message is hope and he's promising change.

   Hope and change, I like the ideas, we could all use some hope and a change in the way our government works has been needed for years. I'm likely going to vote for him, but I don't think things are going to change. If things do change I don't think they will very much and that's where the hope becomes a bad thing. Some people are ridiculously full of hope and expectations for this guy, "he's Americas last great hope," is something I read last night, "he's going to throw out the lobbyists and fight corruption," and a lot of people act like if he's elected the war will come to a screeching halt and gas prices will drop.

   Politicians will exaggerate or lie about anything they can to win an election, Obama doesn't strike me as that type of guy but most of the people in the senate and in congress do. What these die-hard Obama supporters don't seem to realize is he can't just walk into the oval office, snap his fingers and have things change. He has to work with the people in the senate and congress, the established ones, the ones who get kickbacks from lobbyists, take lots of time off, always stick to the party line, begin their re-election campaigns as soon as there re-elected, vote themselves a raise every few years. There not going to let things change, at least not very easily. They like how the system works, it works for them.

   Just last week an Obama adviser, Cass Sunstein from the University of Chicago Law School "cautioned against prosecuting criminal conduct from the current administration. Prosecuting government officials risks a "cycle" of criminalizing public service, he argued, and Democrats should avoid replicating retributive efforts like the impeachment of President Clinton -- or even the "slight appearance" of it."^[1] That doesn't sound like a great way to start off a presidency built on "change." Someone told me recently to be ridiculously overconfident in everything I do, and I'm trying to start thinking that way; but I cant when it comes to supporting Obama, he's only human. And a politician.