Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader had a full day yesterday. One that required lots of driving around and socializing. It was a great day in fact. (NB to Kevin: Sorry for being a schmuck and not sticking around longer to help out tidy things up - especially in light of the length of your later absence.) But on the down-side of the day, your Maximum Leader didn’t get to see any football on TV. Neither did he watch “Meet the Press” in the morning.

So… Colin Powell endorsing Obama. Well… Your Maximum Leader can’t say that he predicted this, because he didn’t. Is he surprised… Well… A little. He thought that Powell might have just kept his thoughts to himself. But, he didn’t. Is this a big blow to John McCain? Not exactly. On the balance these endorsements don’t amount to much. Powell’s might carry a little more weight than most, but still that isn’t all that much. Is your Maximum Leader disappointed in Powell’s endorsement? Sure he is. Is it going to change his vote (or the votes of others who have already determined to vote one way or the other). Might the Powell endorsement sway an “undecided” voter? Possibly. Of course if you are still undecided right now it is likely that you are both stupid and easily swayed by the last person you spoke with. So you will keep on being undecided for a few more weeks…

At this point your Maximum Leader is expecting an Obama victory on November 4th. He will be sad for John McCain for a little bit… But then he’ll move on to being filled with black-hearted glee at an Obama presidency. Many prominent persons (Colin Powell & Christopher Buckley) and institutions (the Washington Post) have endorsed Barack Obama because of the potential he brings for change. The common theme of the endorsements are that he is new and fresh and can be a change agent. (The other common theme of the endoresments is that “Obama isn’t a typical liberal Democrat. Read his books and you’ll see.” (NB to Smallholder: Hummm….) Of course, the undercurrent of that line of thinking is that basically Obama is lying about what he will do upon becoming president. You should take a moment and read Skippy’s take on this.

As your Maximum Leader wrote back in February, he believes that an Obama presidency will be four years of soul-crushing for those who believe he can bring change to Washington and the nation. The nature of Washington, coupled with all the various crises facing the nation right now will not be terribly accomodating to a program of change put forth by a (prospective) Obama administration. Indeed it is going to be very nasty and messy.

In fact, your Maximum Leader is dismayed by our immediate future prospects regardless of who wins the Presidency. It hasn’t gotten to the point where he fears for his children’s future… But it is pretty bad…

Of course, the election hasn’t yet occured and anything is possible. Some polls say the race is “tightening.” Some polls say that Obama is widening his lead. Your Maximum Leader can only speak for what he sees and hears around him. Virginia seems rather evenly divided right now. That is a very bad thing for John McCain. There are going to be a lot of ticket splitters here. This is to say that these people will vote for John McCain for President and Mark Warner for Senate. To be honest, your Maximum Leader will likely be one of these. McCain should be far ahead now in Virginia. But Obama’s huge amount of money is keeping him in the race here and keeping volunteers in the streets. It is coming down to turnout. Your Maximum Leader suspects that it will come down to turnout and legal challenges in lots of areas. The prospect of lots of legal challenges fills your Maximum Leader with dismay. But, it is what our republic has come down to.

In other news…

Your Maximum Leader had written off the Tampa Bay Rays after their Game 5 debacle in Boston. But they have come back and won the game they needed to and are going to the World Series. (So we can see that your Maximum Leader’s predictions are worth crap.) Now it is a Phillies/Rays series. This is a difficult choice in terms of choosing for whom to root. Your Maximum Leader can’t really abide by the Phillies, but he is a National League type of guy. The Rays could be one of those “teams of destiny.” But he just can’t get excited about Florida teams in any sport… Mrs Villain has already declared that she will not watch the World Series because she can’t stand either team. Your Maximum Leader loves his baseball so he wants to watch… But he just doesn’t like either team…

As you can tell… Things are going just swimmingly here this morning…

Carry on.