Ayres On Cinema Obama
Love LA-based Times of London correspondent Chris Ayres' review of the Obama-mercial. At least the Brits know schmaltz when they see it. At least a few Brits, anyway. Here's an excerpt from Ayers' piece:

This was Obamaland, where everything is safe and warm, where Big Brobama loves you and keeps the evil profit-doers at bay. You, too, could go to Obamaland, went the subtext, just so long as you voted for the man with the "D" next to his name. But in case Americans didn't realise what was at stake, Obama set out to demonstrate what a God-forsaken, economically devastated shell of a nation they now live in. So we cut to a harried mother named Rebecca, from North Kansas City, Missouri, who complained that her husband Brian, who works at a tyre plant, has to stand up all day, even though he has a dicky knee. We were treated to a glimpse of Brian slumped on his sofa, looking fed up. He had planned to have surgery in June, said Rebecca, but because of the rising cost of living he couldn't afford it. We then saw Rebecca rationing the food in her fridge, balancing her cheque book, and driving her humungous SUV in the moonlight.

From this purgatory we emerged again into the comforting fuzzy goodness of Obamaland. "We measure the strength of our country not by the number of billionaires we have," he boomed, "but by whether a waitress who lives on tips can take the day off to look after a sick kid without being laid off."

Then we were back in the wasteland of He Who Must Not Be Named -- the dark wizard Bush (whose dead half-brother, McCain, has been exhumed to carry on his dastardly work). This time we were in Sardinia, Ohio, with an elderly African-American woman named Juanita who needs 12 different medications each day for rheumatoid arthritis. Her husband Larry lost his health insurance when he retired, so he took out a loan to pay for the pills, and now, at the age of 72, he has been forced to work as a salesman at Wal-Mart. We saw him putting on his name-pin with an expression of sadness and contempt.

Then Obama brought up his dead mother. It was enough to make you pine for the wit and intelligence of a Sarah Palin debate. I had hoped for goosebumps and that swollen feeling you get in your chest when you know that something good might happen. But instead I just felt downbeat; not only because of America's obvious problems but also because of Obama's willingness to exploit them so mawkishly.

Republicans have always used fear to their advantage. Now it seems that the Democrats are just as skilled with self-pity. It's a measure of just how poorly McCain has run his campaign that Americans seem to be buying it.

More here from ToL correspondent Tim Reid on Barack Obama laying plans to deaden expectation after an election victory -- if it does indeed go to the socialist with the D by his name instead of the one with the R by his name:

Barack Obama's senior advisers have drawn up plans to lower expectations for his presidency if he wins next week's election, amid concerns that many of his euphoric supporters are harbouring unrealistic hopes of what he can achieve.

The sudden financial crisis and the prospect of a deep and painful recession have increased the urgency inside the Obama team to bring people down to earth, after a campaign in which his soaring rhetoric and promises of "hope" and "change" are now confronted with the reality of a stricken economy.

One senior adviser told The Times that the first few weeks of the transition, immediately after the election, were critical, "so there's not a vast mood swing from exhilaration and euphoria to despair".

Thanks, but I'm already pretty low, after a good look at the names on my ballot. 200 million people and these losers are all we can muster? The best is the headscarfed Cynthia McKinney, stating her allegiance to the Al-Jazeera crowd...on Al-Jazeera. It's frightening to think people considered sane adults vote for this person.

McKinney via Kate Coe