rational geekery

Barack Obama, the democratic senator for Illinois, is regarded by many, as a future Democratic nomination for President of the United States. After a highly successful keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, Obama was held up as the great hope for a beleaguered party. There is no doubt that the Democrat's do need a glimmer of hope, following their loss in the 2004 election, to the polarising George W. Bush.

The Hawaiian born Obama meets many of the prerequisites for a future Great President: industrious, intellectual (he was former pres. of the Harvard Law Review), bold, and charismatic. If you could buy a presidential hopeful off the shelf, Obama would be the top of the range, a premium model.

Even in Washington's Machtpolitik, Obama seems to score highly, taking on the current Rovian bifurcation:

"We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don't like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States, and yes, we've got some gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq, and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq.";

However it is the very motivation of this statement that defies the notion that Barack Obama could ever be a Great President. The US is just too politically fractured for any president to ever be considered Great again.

The current level of American political division is destroying any collective will to tackle the great problems facing the union. Globalisation, fiscal concerns, and the threat of international terrorism have knocked the US for six, yet American politicians are unwilling to drop the electioneering for a second to join arms in solidarity.

Maybe I'm wrong, and I truly hope I am, and someone like Obama can unify this great nation; but the signs, sadly, do not look good.