What was your reaction to the results of the Iowa caucuses?
Pleased to see that Barack Obama won the Iowa Caucus, it's not being nominated, but it is a big boost. A few months ago people had started to write him off, people had started to write off everyone who wasn't Hillary Clinton. Last night's result showed that Clinton is beatable to the nomination, last night showed people who thought that Obama was too young or could not get enough support that he can.
I've liked Obama for some time now, and his book The Audacity of Hope is a really good read, I like his ideas and his humane values. People say that it's spin, and that even if elected, he'd still have to live up to them, but surely better to have someone who will at least try than all these boring old faces who are entrenched in decades of politics and have forgotten what can be achieved if you just try. Even if Obama only lives up to some of his potential, he is still a good prospect.
I've seen him attacked a lot for being naive. They say he's naive with foreign policy because he said that he would talk to America's enemies. At present America refuses to talk to certain states unless they agree that they'll do what America wants. Barack Obama says that he would talk to these states, he'd open up a dialogue with them. Surely that is not naive, but sensible?
Watch his speech and you see someone who is optimistic and focused, his eyes are completely on the prize. That speech is not fighting for a nomination, that speech is confident and fighting for the election. Note the constant references to uniting republicans and democrats, etc.
My only concern is the south. Will hicks vote for a black man? Do hicks have a big sway in the electoral college? These questions remind me of the JFK biography, at the time so many people said JFK could not win the nomination, never mind the presidency because he was Catholic and yet he did. I think Obama has the right style and vitality to appeal to a pretty broad base of the electorate. I just hope that America believes in, as Obama puts it, The Audacity of Hope.