Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader wonders how many of his readers will start this post thinking that he will start mocking Senator Barack Obama in one way or another… Well… If that is the case, then this post will disappoint.

Your Maximum Leader is actually going to heap a little praise on the freshman senator from Illinois (the Land of Lincoln don’t you know). Senator Obama’s campaign announced yesterday that they will be skipping future Democratic Presidential Candiate “Debates” for the near term. Obama campaign manager David Plouffe stated, “We simply cannot continue to hopscotch from forum to forum and run a campaign true to the bottom-up movement for change that propelled Barack into this race.”

Your Maximum Leader thinks that this is a smart move on Obama’s part. He can likely do a much better job of projecting the image he wants to project without having to share a stage with 6 (or 8 or however many Democrats are running for president) other people. Obama’s campaign will probably be better off coming up with a schedule of visits in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina that will get their man out in front of the masses.

Of course, the Iowa caucuses, and New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries, are being held sometime in January next year. Your Maximum Leader reads that dates aren’t all finalized because everyone wants to be first. Probably the truest account of this aspect of our election story was when The Onion spoofed a headline that read something like “Iowa caucus moved to last week.”

Carry on.