by Ted Sherman

Created on: June 17, 2008

Now that the race is down to two candidates, cold statistics clearly show which should be our next President. On paper, John McCain is by far the more qualified in all areas: years of experience, service in both government and the military and knowledge of international affairs.

However, it should be no surprise that Barack Obama, an intensely bright, very well-educated young man, has fought his way through the Democratic primaries and achieved the historic victory to become the party's nominee for President.

The timing was exactly right for an African-American to compete for the nation's top job, and Barack Obama came along just when America was ready for change. Change is the key word on every Obama banner as he confidently advances into the final crucial months of the campaign.

The honing of the Obama image has been a resounding success by the candidate's team of experts and on-board celebrity and political supporters. In less than a year, his status has been carefully built up from what was once just an obscure, first-term Democratic Illinois Senator to a Hillary-dragon-slaying, rock star American idol.

However, although his momentum mounts day by day, his chances to win against John McCain are still far from overwhelming. Many Americans still wonder if the young man has been faking the good guy candidate, while lurking behind the smiling face is a man with a sinister hidden agenda.

Are we all in the Land of Oz, and we're all being conditioned to obey the Wizard when he tells us to "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain?" Do our worst fears suspect that Obama may have been brainwashed by his troublesome 20-year palsy-walsy, too-close association with rabid anti-American loudmouth, the Reverend Jerimiah Wright.

And what about his other long-time buddies, Father Michael Pfleger, Louis Farakkhan and those 1960-70s bomb-happy revolutionaries Bernadine Dohrn and Bill Ayers? If a man is known by the company he keeps, has Barack Obama been keeping the wrong company?

Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your politics, as every day goes by, Obama's chances of being elected President increase, and it may have nothing to do with his qualifications for the office, nor even his rock-star status. The continuing disasters of the oil-cartel-loving Bush Administration may have already sealed a Republican defeat in November, no matter how qualified a candidate John McCain may be.

McCain, who earned his reputation as an independent politician, has done absolutely nothing to distance himself from the troubled President Bush. In fact, all of Senator McCain's recent public statements have shown total slavish support for the Republicans' failed economic, military and oil policies.

The simple fact is that if the already outrageous price of gas at the pump gets even worse, and the GIs continue to fight and die in endless wars in the Middle East, and the American economy sinks into recession, it should be no surprise when President Barack Obama moves into the White House in January.

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