PUNK'D!

Back in the day, on the black tops of elementary school, if one team ran up a lead on the other team of ten to nothing we would call it a "skunk" and the game would be started over; the point being one of mercy for the team that didn't have it going on. They needed a "do over." Well, from February 6th now Barack Obama's campaign has skunked that of Hillary Clinton. She's the kid that had her pants pulled down on the playground. And it has to be embarrassing beyond belief.

Hillary Clinton is a tough lady. She's a politician who has no qualms about being a politician with all of the subterfuge that that can entail. She was a prohibitive favorite to be the Democratic nominee for President not even two months ago. She had the experience. She had the solutions. She had the support of the laborers, women, white America. Now Barack Obama has arrived on the scene with more money, more magnetism, a message that is more bulletproof than Superman. Who wants to be the candidate to tell me "no we can't." Barack Obama is Campaign Santa Claus, offering the gift of hope in a time when American's are cynical about our political structures.

Rudy Guiliani, America's Mayor, implemented a head scratching strategy of relying on Florida to launch his victory march to the Republican nomination. It proved too late and by his third place finish, much too little. Now Hillary Clinton's campaign roars into Ohio and Texas, two big states, that the Senator feels confident will bring her candidacy back from the dead. But unless she has Caesar Romero campaigning for her she faces an uphill climb. She has no momentum. She has no verve. Barack Obama's 18,000 people attended arena speech in Houston, Texas last night pulled every network away from Hillary Clinton's high school bleacher speech in Youngstown, Ohio. It was a case of the average Jane who walks into the party and gets some attention until the dime steps into the door and restores order with longer legs, a brighter smile, and more style. Every time Clinton gives a speech she must be waiting for Ashton Kutcher to pop out and say, "You got punk'd!"

Clinton and John McCain, the probable Republican nominee, have to figure out a way to position their qualifications in the media without being seen by the American populace as the grinch who stole their belief in the possibility of a new type of politics in Washington. A politics that calls for bipartisanship in legislation and for the American people to play their part in building up the country as Obama says, "block by block, county by county, state by state." Obama is on a better roll than a Vegas casino regular.