"A Million Miles From Humdrum"

Obama might as well now be. Chicago Town? Who cares? He's about to become the President of the United States.

Clinton brought numerous dodgy old Arkansas cronies to the White House. Bush brought numerous dodgy old Texas cronies to the White House. Both were exposed time and time again, to absolutely no effect whatever.

Under Blair, no one went sniffing around the right-wing Labour Establishment in the North East generally and County Durham in particular. Under Brown, no one is going sniffing around the right-wing Labour Establishment in Scotland. Rather more significantly, no one has gone sniffing around the old Communist Party of Great Britain and the old Trotskyist groupuscules, whence came the New Labour Project that hoodwinked the Old Labour Right in Scotland, the North East and everywhere else.

But the Illinois Senate seat does still need to be filled. That is an opportunity to re-engage with the deeply disaffected Obama Coalition betrayed by the retention of old Bush hands and the return of old Clinton has-beens, including Hillary Clinton.