Strangely, I find myself agreeing with this Fred Siegel statement:

Only Clinton derangement syndrome can explain the alliance of so many otherwise thoughtful people of both parties who speak well of the candidacy of a man with scant knowledge of the world who has never been tested and has never run anything larger than a senatorial office.

If Obama were somehow able to win the nomination, which I still think unlikely, an Obama v. McCain contest would pit two proud non-managers against each other.  Where McCain talks of leadership (”I can hire managers,” he dismissively said to the Super-Manager Romney at the last debate), Obama prattles on about his vision for America, and both of them seem to take some satisfaction in eschewing detailed knowledge about major areas of policy.  “We’ve had plenty of plans, what we need is hope,” Obama said in an early DNC speech last year.  Where Obama drops hope into every other sentence, McCain uses the word victory.  For some reason, there are millions of people who hear this and don’t realise that this repetition of key words is an effort to cover up for lack of preparedness and lack of any idea how to accomplish the things on the candidate’s agenda (to the extent that he even has a clear agenda).  If we have an Obama v. McCain election, it will be one of the first times in recent memory that we have had two candidates vying for the leadership of a managerial state with little or no interest in managing.  Since people instinctively recoil from such a state, it is understandable why they would be drawn to candidates who appear to be different the usual staple of pols, but what they see as boldness or “maverick” instincts is really the result of people who are just making it up as they go along, always looking for the main chance to advance themselves.