According to Diane Francis of the Canadian National Post, there are good reasons for the Barak Obama phenomenon:

The point is, if Bush policies worked for the majority, McCain would be ahead. Instead, there is a large, and growing, “third-world country” inside the United States that consists of unhealthy, damaged and disenfranchised people victimized by lousy education in poor neighbourhoods, little or no medical care or war injuries that are not compensated for properly. African-Americans have been damaged for centuries and there is no help for America’s “downstairs” — the millions of illegals, exploited as nannies, delivery “boys” or orange and avocado pickers — who cater to America’s wealthy “upstairs” elite.

Moreover, she claims that Obama’s vision for America would make us look a whole lot like our good neighbors to the north. You know – poor Americans would have access to the same healthcare options as our government officials, children of poor families would have the same educational opportunities as children of richer families, and the US would take a more multi-lateral approach to global security than it does today.

That certainly doesn’t sound so bad, but I suspect that many Americans don’t want to consider becoming more Canadian (or is that Canadian-ish?). My guess is that US right wingers will take the prospective Canuckification of America as a sign that Obama’s wrong for the job – all the while missing the clue train along the way. Clearly, the US would be better off if we didn’t have a knee-jerk attitude about Canadian ideas and solutions that essentially asked, “If an idea occurred to a Canadian, and no American was around to ridicule it, would it still be stupid?”

Sadly, there are some things I fear a President Obama could never do. Here in Alabama, I doubt we’ll ever get hockey on TV without paying through the nose for it.