5-31-08, 8:55 am

The real entertainment regarding campaign '08 isn't Senator Barack Obama. It's watching how people react to him, Black and white. From Blacker-than-thou commentators to pesky Black conservatives. From working-class whites to a former president's wife. All have bizarre takes and schemes on the man who would be the next Commander-in-Chief.

Black conservative columnist Thomas Sowell said in the 5/20 New York Post that the word 'change' has become the catchword for this year's presidential campaign. He compares believing in Obama to believing in Santa Claus, he begins: 'The great Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said that a good catchword could stop people from thinking for 50 years... the contrast between talking and doing could not have been better illustrated.' Sowell – like the rest of us – had yet to learn that Hillary's private catchword was assassinate.

Obama is the candidate who adopted the motto 'Change You can Believe in.' Thus far he hasn't done or said anything that is evidence that he is not living up to that. I can't say the same regarding his Democratic opponent Senator Hillary Clinton and her early choice of a catchword 'experience.' I noted in an earlier open letter to her that her legislative record in the Senate may show tenure as a US Senator but not accomplishment. This is understandable if you remember that Hillary responded to Obama's entry into this race by telling voters that her experience came from being the wife of a president. Notice she wasn't pushing her legislative record. The 20 mostly-benign bills (except for a couple of 9/11 victims-related measures) she pushed are not even on the radar when compared to Obama's 280 which he either authored or co-signed including the Illinois anti-racial profiling bill and another dealing with interrogation of police detainees. He passed these despite heated initial opposition from Republicans and police. Whose experience would you prefer?

Part of the reason Hil commits so many gaffs is due to three factors: inexperience on the Senate floor, desperation (when your opponent has been leading you during most of the race and now only needs 52 delegates and you need a whopping 247, you might be subject to saying anything too), and what I call White-Trash Anxiety Syndrome; sounding like one of those tack-heads on 'The View' i.e. the real persona comes out when losing attention or votes to a black.

Clinton didn't learn from the Bosnian sniper statements because much of the country and major national media enabled her and now she has become out of control. Given her Freudian Slip on Friday the 23rd to the Editorial Board of the Argus Leader, maybe it's good she been generally silent on the Senate floor.When she tried to defend her refusal to exit the presidential race, she said: 'My husband did not wrap up the nomination in1992 until he won the California Primary somewhere in the middle of June right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California.' So there it is. All this time Hillary has been ignoring the numbers and crossing her fingers, hoping that sooner or later an assassin's bullet will give her a free ride to the Democratic nomination. She has gone from seeing imaginary snipers in Bosnia, to conjuring up snipers here in the US to hunt Obama.

Michael Goodwin's column in the 5/24 New York Daily News fires some bullets at Hil: -We have seen an X-Ray of a very dark soul. -It's like Tanya Harding knee-capping has come to politics. -It puts out a very dangerous subliminal message. And to some crazy people it's not even subliminal, it's worse.' Clearly her statements to the Argus Leader was wrong on so many fronts, not the least of which involves recalling vivid memories for the Kennedy family during Ted's illness. Hil's words, in spite of her protests that she gets no respect and her charges of sexism, is just typical Clinton vindictiveness when they feel their backs are against the wall. This also reveals some potentially gross inability to deal with foreign leaders that could spell world disaster in spite of many republicans fear of Obama standing tall in the pocket and dialog with the Castro brothers and Middle Eastern dictators. What the right really fears is he'll be successful without all the political duplicity, and slander that inexperience brings. --Chris Stevenson now writes for the Buffalo Challenger. Contact him at