Obamamania!

It's pretty clear that Barack Obama is going to smash the field in New Hampshire. He's up as much as 10 points in most respected polls. And Hillary's campaign is right to be nervous. They're in a very tough spot. Their campaign is reduced to having union buster Mark Penn spinning polls and lying to reporters. I agree with Kevin Drum that the way we select a President in this day and age is totally out of whack; momentum is way too important, early-state victories take complete precedence over everything else, the media actively tries to choose candidates. But it's what we have right now.

I'd be all the way down to have this be the last time we do this Iowa-New Hampshire-30 states voting in a month thing. But realistically, that's not going to happen until 2016 if a Democrat takes the White House. There isn't likely to be a contested primary on the Democratic side, and reform has only ever come from the Democrats.

I mentioned earlier that the Republican candidates where having problems figuring out a line of attack against Obama. Not so for the wingnut class, who's settled on the spectre of black people rioting if Obama loses. Now that's taking fearmongering in a whole new direction.

UPDATE: Because I'm in some kind of blog-fight with others over the relevance of California in this debate, here's some background. Let me add that I don't like the system as it is. I'd love to end it as soon as humanly possible. What I objected to was this idea that by moving up to February 5, California somehow fixed the system. They very clearly made it worse. And I objected that somehow the candidates would suddenly talk about "California issues." Let me ask this: the EPA's denial of a waiver for California to regulate greenhouse gas emissions was a major issue in the past few weeks. Has Barack Obama mentioned it? Take a look. Has Hillary Clinton? Uh-uh. John Edwards? he at least submitted testimony in favor of the waiver back in June, but lately? No.

At least Edwards has Nataline Sarkysian's family out on the campaign trail, but not in California, in New Hampshire.

I'm making a very narrow argument. If you want to blow up the system, blow it up. Don't graft on this half-measure, lie to the electorate and say everything's fixed, and perpetuate a broken system. It's really a very simple theory.