And so the inevitable, though 18 months ago unthinkable, has happened: Barack Obama has grasped the candidacy of the Democratic Party for the presidency of the US. I am not qualified enough to play political journalist and will never posess the beautiful prose with some of these people write, but I can tell you that 12 months ago I was a commited Hillaritarian: I wanted a woman to be president (I still [maybe foolishly] believe that women [even in politics] rather talk about shoes than wage war, making the world an inherently safer place), and I wanted it to be Hillary. She was committed to universal healthcare, had significant experience in policy making and as a European I wanted her to bring Bill along (always called the most instinctive politician of his generation but who damaged her campaign from the sidelines so badly that he needs to take some of the blame for her downfall) who would have made a great foreign policy advisor and all around good guy. I had a soft spot for Joe Biden and thought that Obama was a ballsy, inspired orator, but for me it was the Hill and Bill show all the way.

Then, 2 months ago, I switched allegiances. What went wrong? It’s not like that Obama has presented a detailed set of policies that I can subscribe to and he still sounds terribly vague on most fronts, but it was really Hillary herself that made me leave her camp.

The first time I rolled my eyes and thought ‘oh my god’ was during her interview on ‘Good Morning America’:

“I want the Iranians to know that if I’m the president, we will attack Iran (if it attacks Israel). In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them.”

Hello? Haven’t we had enough hawkish morons in the US administration over the last 8 years? As soon as that goon Ahmadinejad is gone it’s going to be easier to talk to the Iranians anyway. But now, she had to do a McCain.

And then there was the environmental own goal of proposing to give the most energy inefficient nation on this world a ‘tax holiday’ on their enormously subsidised fuel.

Duh.

Obama (or that ‘Muslim Guy’, as I heard a lady from Arkansas call him) makes more conciliatory noises on foreign policy and was not prepared to support that idiotic and populistic tax holiday thing which strikes me as a better plan if you want to steer a globally despised nation in times of 145$ per barrel of crude.

So, if I would be a resident in that country south of Canada (which I’ll [touch wood] never be), my vote would go to that brave new hope of the Democratic Party.

Can he do it ?

Yes, he can.

P.S. Although he should really lose the ‘Bob the Builder’ references.

P.P.S And Hillary? She would make an excellent Secretary of Health. And Bill could become the American Ambasador in Paris.