On the one hand:
Clinton for President with Obama as VP... unelectable.
and
Obama for President with Clinton as VP... possibly electable.
...on the other hand:
McCain for President with Huckabee as VP... also unelectable.
and
McCain for President with Condoleeza Rice as VP... also possibly electable.
However:
Obama for President with AnyoneOtherThanHillary as VP beats McCain no matter who his running mate is.
My considered opinion would be that Obama's AnyOneOtherThanHillary of choice should be Ralph Nader. This avoids the contentious splitting of the Democrat vote that arguably cost John Kerry the 2004 election. It also has the benefits of protecting Obama (which vested interest is going to assassinate/impeach him if the alternative is ultra-liberal Nader... might as well have Michael Moore in the White House) and it rehabilitates (in a way) the man who most pundits (politics aside) would agree is the most respected liberal icon of the 20th century (if not a front runner for greatest living American).
As long as America shuns people like Ralph Nader, America is lost.
What most Europeans like about Obama is the hope (spurred by the vagueness of his policy details) that he will move America away from it's current path (a faltering fascist state in all but name moving towards becoming a regressive/oppressive theocratic idiocracy) towards a more liberal, compassionate, realistic form of government.
We here in Ireland (and Britain) have always looked west for inspiration... let's privatise public transport, LIKE THEY'RE DOING IN AMERICA... let's privatise healthcare, LIKE THEY'RE DOING IN AMERICA... let's cut taxes, LIKE THEY'RE DOING IN AMERICA... let's offer tax incentives and government dig-outs to multinational corporations LIKE THEY'RE DOING IN AMERICA.
Well now it's thirty years later... and guess what? AMERICA'S FUCKED! And the shiny Yankee social policies we all jumped on are failing here as badly as they failed Stateside.
The highly respected historian Jared Diamond (author of "Guns, Germs and Steel") writing in his treatise on the dynamics of human civilization/population cycles, his recent book "Collapse (Why Civilizations Choose to Fail)" made a well argued and plausible assessment of America's prospects of surviving the next century: 50/50!
Meanwhile there's been a quiet revolution in the Scandinavian countries based on sensible long-term thinking and non-sensationalist politics.
Here's an example, the United Nations (WHO) rankings of the best healthcare systems in the world for 2006: (take the time to read it)
1 France
2 Italy
3 San Marino
4 Andorra
5 Malta
6 Singapore
7 Spain
8 Oman
9 Austria
10 Japan
11 Norway
12 Portugal
13 Monaco
14 Greece
15 Iceland
16 Luxembourg
17 Netherlands
18 United Kingdom
19 Ireland
20 Switzerland
21 Belgium
22 Colombia
23 Sweden
24 Cyprus
25 Germany
26 Saudi Arabia
27 United Arab Emirates
28 Israel
29 Morocco
30 Canada
31 Finland
32 Australia
33 Chile
34 Denmark
35 Dominica
36 Costa Rica
37 United States of America
38 Slovenia
...guess which country spends more than any other country on healthcare (both per capita and as a percentage of GDP; even adjusted for cost of living)? Yes, it's number 37! Guess which countries have free universal healthcare? Yes, that's right... the whole top twenty.
But America simply can't have universal healthcare because the vested interests behind FOX NEWS hired wordsmiths and propagandists who re-labelled the idea "Socialised Medicine"; as if it's only to be considered something that failed in communist countries.
Here's the "Peace" ranking (how unlikely you are to be drafted/invaded):
1 Norway
2 New Zealand
3 Denmark
4 Ireland
5 Japan
6 Finland
7 Sweden
8 Canada
9 Portugal
10 Austria ...notice all the same countries in the top ten this time around? Well you should as European (Scandinavian countries in particular) dominate the top rankings in just about every favourable living index: longevity; wealth; health; education; literacy; child mortality; crime rates; prison population; even "happiness".
by the way, the US ranks 96th on the Peace Index.
To prove my point, here's the rankings of most LIVABLE countries... considering a weighted formula of crime; life expectancy; wealth; education; health; benefits etc etc
1 Iceland
2 Norway
3 Australia
4 Canada
5 Ireland
6 Sweden
7 Switzerland
8 Japan
9 Netherlands
10 France ...the US ranks 12th and only due to it's sheer wealth and a misleading averaging of results that doesn't properly represent the growing disparity and inequalities in American society.
Hopefully Obama has been so coy with his agenda as he is actually smart enough to know that what America needs to prevent its collapse is what it fears most:
-liberalism
-atheism (goodbye jeebus!)
-high taxes that are fair and redistribute wealth
-proper eductaion: nationalised and properly funded
-universal healthcare: nationalised and properly funded
-gun control
-"BIG" government
-strict controls on corporations
-strict controls on vested interests
-strict controls on the military/industrial complex
-pluralist media (goodbye Rupert Murdoch!)
-proper separation of church and state
-an end to tax exemption for religions
-science education
-equality
...or to put it more succinctly; America (and the world at large) needs a Scandinavian mindset.
...if America can embrace all these things, a cull of the low IQ breeding stock might be averted.
End of lecture...
The Luke