Doesn’t it make your heart sing to just think…no more debates! It feels like strange, uncharted territory without our weekly dose of platitude polishing, but I suppose all good things must come to an end.

Everyone debates who won the debate last night - Hillary or Barack (Time was we weren’t on such an intimate basis with these two Senators - but now, they just feel like part of the family.)

I know I’ll surprise no one if I say Hillary, as I’m beginning to feel like the only man left in North America who would think so. Quite frankly, Hillary’s much derided bit of mockery earlier this week in Rhode Island struck me as just about right:

Sen. Obama is and remains more tent revivalist than pragmatic manager, and for all the time he spent defending his health care plan last night (for example) I still don’t think he ever satisfactorily addressed the weaknesses Sen. Clinton challenged him on.

I will admit that much of my attitude about Sen. Obama was shaped by his evasive answer after the matter of indicted real estate developer Tony Rezko was brought up last month (we have written about this can of worms extensively here so we will not rehash it now. For background go here

But also, I was troubled by the outrage his supporters manufactured in South Carolina to try and tarnish the Clintons as being racists. Last night for example Sen Obama basically said that the Civil Rights movement wouldn’t have succeeded without Jewish allies. When Sen Clinton mentioned that President Johnson actually pushed the Civil Rights Act, helping to realise Dr. King’s “Dream” she was raked over the coals for “dissing” Dr. King. What are we to make of Sen. Obama’s pandering to Jewish voters last night?

Of course, it was never even mentioned in the post-mortem. Indeed, Sen. Obama made a point of doing somersaults to convince possible Jewish voters that the security of Israel was “sacrosanct”. (Gee, when is the Israel primary?)

Hardly a “transformation” or even a scintilla of “change” in that respect.

Israel’s repugnant policies in Gaza have gone largely unnoticed in this country and as the word “sacrosanct” suggests a kind of primal carte blanch to do whatever they want, it is unlikely that President Obama will do much to reign in the more bloodthirsty elements there.

But then, of course, he was only pandering to the Jewish vote - to have actually voiced a clear oppositonal position might have risked making himself controversial and, of course, the candidate of change simply can’t let his guard down in that respect.

Like this year’s absurdly over-hyped Oscar Winner, No Country for Old Men - a slasher movie dressed up as “art” - Obama is running on a platform that is indistinguishable from most of the other former Democrats who were in the field, but we must still all pretend that he is like Ghandi or something, despite the fact that there is no evidence that he has ever done anything in his public life except campaign.

He is a very shrewd politician.