Or Maybe Barack Obama Just Really Digs Maple Syrup

Every blogger in America who writes about American politics has posted the story in The Washington Post about Barack Obama's trip to New Hampshire. Of course it means what we think it means, but we live in an age of political coyness. They like to presume to do us the favor of flirting with us before we jump into bed. There are lots of fine reasons to go to New Hampshire in December. The Currier & Ives vibe, the covered bridges, the quintessentially New England small towns with the town commons flanked by churches, the maple syrup, the flinty and curmudgeonly folks looking askance at outsiders, the natural beauty -- I love my home state. But my guess is that Barack Obama can afford to have maple syrup shipped to him, and that his affinity for pancake breakfasts and this morning, at least, lamentations about the Patriots is not enough to compel him toward the Granite State. I would guess that the gathered crowd that paid $25 a head to see him speak felt as if maybe, just maybe, Obama wasn't simply trying to recoup the Concord Trailways fare to Portsmouth. This is not, after all, their first exposure to the exotic quadrennial creature known as candidatus potentialus.