American politics – New Superstar & Swift Boat Smears

I have been taking the summer off but now I am back, and I want to focus on the U.S. election over the next few months.

So to begin: for those who missed the Democratic Convention, the highlight for me was the speech of Barack Obama, a State Senator from Illinois certain to be elected this fall as a U.S. Senator, who looks like an emerging political superstar. Watching his speech and seeing him live for the first time was like watching Wayne Gretzky take to the ice for the first time. He is that good. The speech transcript can be found here.

To find out more about this new star performer, from the May 31, 2004 issue of the New Yorker, read this profile.

On the Swift Boat smears much has been written by now, but I found the best summary was one titled, "Dirty Tricks, Patrician Style" on CBS.com.

Still the Swift Boat smears appear to be hurting Kerry.