Be careful what you hope for

Hope can quickly turn into hopelessness.

The very act of hope brings with it an expectation that things can and will get better.

Each passing day that hope fails to deliver is one step closer to losing hope.

Can President Obama, with his promise of hope, make things better?

If it was 1982, perhaps. If it was 1992, perhaps. If it was 2002, perhaps.

It isn't. It's 2008 and things can and will only get worse.

Unfortunately, the situation will get worse for precisely the people to whom Barak Obama has offered his special brand of hope: the black, working class.

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Obama's key pledge to the US electorate was to cut taxes for 95% of working Americans.

The key word here is working.

US jobs are currently being lost at a faster rate each month and are likely to continue to fall faster.

The greatest cause of poverty in any economy is not low wages or high taxes but unemployment.

The current environment is particularly severe as those people most at risk of losing their jobs have already lost, or are very likely to, lose their homes too.

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In the coming months what we could see is the type of humanitarian disaster created by Hurricane Katrina but on a national (indeed international) scale.

How bad would an African-American President look if this occured on US soil?

Bad enough to lose the election in 2012.

The only question remaining is which lucky politician will inherit a situation in 2012 similar to that in 1982, 1992 or 2002? That's someone who Barak Obama can only hope to be.

Timing is everything after all...

Minority report

The race to become US President has gone from the most exciting prospect for change in America to the same old politics.

But how is this possible? Isn't Barak Obama just the "change" the country needs?

He is. Unfortunately, the majority of voting Americans won't agree that someone from a minority group can lead the way.

With John Edwards now eliminated, two truly divisive candidates remain, neither of whom can convince enough voters to 'buy in' to their view of the world.

America's nightmare continues.

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Last year I predicted that John Edwards would become the next US President. I also thought that Hillary Clinton would be his Vice President, taking the country one tolerable step closer to a female President.

Sadly, I was wrong about Edwards and I'll probably be proven wrong about Clinton.

Edwards as President was the only hope for Clinton to reach the While House. Now, with him out of the picture, she has absolutely no hope of becoming the Democratic nominee, let alone President.

This leaves Barak Obama, the candidate whose sole message can be summed up in a simple identity:

Hope=Change.

While these are two things the country has not enjoyed in a long time, they suggest nothing but empty promises. With extremely little experience in politics, Obama's message of hope will never be enough to convince enough Americans that he represents the potential for change. This will become painfully obvious in contrast to John McCain (b. 1936).

Instead, it was the message of Edwards that offered the most marketable solution to America's problems:

Change=Hope

Unfortunately for Edwards, he wasn't able to convince enough people of the need for the changes he was prepared to make.

Better luck next time.

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If you were hoping that the 2008 Presidential election would herald a sea-change in American politics, you will be sadly disappointed come January 2009.

The likelihood now is that a Republican will be in the White House and the politics of old will resume.

There is one silver lining to all of this: the odds are against John McCain to win, so you still stand to gain something from the outcome of the election!