How do you solve a problem like Obama?

How do you catch a cloud and pin it down? How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?

So, if you missed it, history was made yesterday. The aptly named speech, "A More Perfect Union", was precisely the right speech at precisely the right moment, given to a national audience. Clintonistas must be infuriated right now and McCainiacs are furiously researching new and better ways to pin down the rhetorical shadowboxer. He was on the ropes for a moment, but he slipped away once more.

The problem is that Barrack Obama isn't a man. He isn't a candidate. He isn't even human. He's an idea. He's a vision. He's the dream of progress made flesh. And you can't fight that.

People don't like Barrack Obama because of his policies. They don't vote for him because they think he'll fix the economy or get us out of Iraq. They vote for him because he makes them feel better about their world, about their country, and about themselves. They vote for him because an African-American president, by simple fact of existence, purges America of its original sin. It cleanses away the guilt, the shame, the divisions, and the hatreds of slavery. Or at least, it promises to.

What Clinton is desperately trying to do, and what McCain will have to succeed at, is to make Barrack Obama a man. A candidate. Because if people begin to see him as a real person, rather than the image of redemption and the promise of an end to racial division, then some serious questions can be asked about who the man is. Then you can play politics and start swinging away. In fact, if voters see Obama as a real human being at any point in this election, he's probably finished.

But how do you do it? How do you pull him down off his pedestal when he can evade punches like the Reverend Wright story? That should have brought down anyone. And it may yet bring down Obama, but it won't be that story alone that does it. Obama's inspiring presentation of his clear analysis and insight into race relations in America saw to that.

As a man and a candidate, he's got all kinds of problems. But as a vision, this guy keeps getting better and better.

And if you're just here for the punch and pie, here's a girl doing 21 accents.

Never make my move to soon....

To the media, wherever it may find them:
"Left me with a Keno card
This life in Vegas sure ain't hard
I ran it up to about fifty grand
Cashed it in and held it in my hand
That kind of word can get around
And make a lost love come up found
I hear you knocking baby at my door
But you know you ain't living here no more
It's too bad
I think you made your move too soon."
-Sincerely yours,
Hillary Clinton, March 5, after taking Texas and Ohio, with apologies to B.B. King

There's a certain sense of drama about this election. It's electrifying. That means the politicians are doing their jobs right. There are so many different roles being bandied about and everything is so very very fluid. Nothing has stuck yet and everything can still change. It's a time for hero's and villains.

We've got the fighter jockey war hero, still fighting the good fight. There's the old man of the establishment, out to stop the new generation and desperately grabbing for power. The voice of reason who said we needed more troops in Iraq long before it was popular, who takes stances based on principle and not on political expediency. The same man who reversed his unpopular opinion on illegal immigration. The savior of the Republican political hopes and the only man who stands a ghost of a chance against the Democrats, damned by the stalwarts of his party. John McCain.

And then there's the American dream come to the flesh. A man who's meteoric rise is the stuff of hope and dreams. Literally. A man who says he represents bipartisan compromise and a new day in Washington, with the single most partisan voting record of any Senator. A man who would show a bold new American face to the rest of the world, and a mere three years ago he was a lowly state senator, debating state cigarette taxes and school lunch menus. Is Barrack Obama the man who will lead America boldly into the next generation (while presenting the same tired ideas carried over from the old)?

Not if the Ice Queen has anything to say about. The most reviled woman in America today, the very mention of her name brings flecks of spit to the mouths of raving conservatives, eager to show their distaste. The first female candidate with a true chance to be president, a woman who has fought for her ideals and principles for over 40 years, even if those principles have been proven wrong for over 40 years. A woman who doesn't wear a single shoulder-padded pant suit without first calculating the political impact it might have. Is she the true standard bearer of change? The one who has the experience to fight her ideals past tough old opposition congressmen? Perhaps, but if conservative America has anything to say about it, Hillary Clinton will only ever again visit the White House after standing in line for a tour.

So many messages to get out, so little time. Which face of these multi-faceted three will the public choose to believe? How will we remember them in five years? Who knows? But you can be sure, in five years, none of them will be seen as they are today. The next few weeks will mold and shape opinions and the next few months will hammer those shapes into steel, a steel so strong that only time and the perspective it brings can change it. And it's all happening right now.

It's fun thing to watch, huh?