I think at this point the Democrats are just keeping their fingers crossed that no more tabloid love child headlines hit the stands.

Biden's an established figure with a relatively unblemished career. But most importantly, and I am showing my cynicism here, he is a white male.

Obama's campaign is faced with a big block of reluctant party members who, frankly, are either bitter about Hillary or unwilling to carry their civil rights beliefs to the point of electing a black man president.

I'm guessing the outright racist demographic is almost all a republican phenomonon, but I wouldn't bet on it. There's a lot of latent racism in the liberal north, believe me. My wife sees it all the time working in Amherst, Massachusetts- Ostensibly a bastion of liberal causes, but pretty fucking bourgeois when you peek under the surface... the disdain for the underclass emerges in coded language and whispers. And then, of course, ironically, there's the racism and ignorance of a large percent of the poor.

American politics have been carrying around the heavy burden of 15th-19th century slavery and its aftermath, not to mention the ghosts of millions of Native Americans killed or displaced by European expansion. It's a nation founded on violence, and yet much of the violence it's wrought thru history has not come home to roost. 9/11, as horrible as it was, was nowhere near the scale of the citywide carnage of WW2, and yet some Americans seem galvanized to the point of madness by it, seeking vengeance far beyond the limits of what is rational.

It's also a nation that's still got very tangible North-South-East-West-Center cultural divisions. It's not unlike the UK in that way, though we also have the very large Spanish-influenced component. But both our cultures are internationalist, and welcome to immigration and accept the sometimes awkward realities that come with it. It's a strength, but it comes with challenges.

Perhaps the dynamism of being in a culture that actively reinvents and expands itself makes for sketchy politics but ultimately creates a stronger overall society?

OK, I'm really off topic now, sorry..