QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 10:41 A.M. ET:  From columnist Kathleen Parker:

We're not a nation of red states or blue states, he told us. We are the United States of America. Except we're not -- and that's the problem Obama faces Wednesday night. The emergence of Obama's heretofore-absent pugilist merely adds another layer to the real challenge before him. Is he trustworthy?

For a year now, Obama's visionary, unifying words haven't matched the results. It isn't entirely his fault, but his leftward agenda took him far from center field where he was when optimistic Americans watched his pregame warmup. Since last January, watching him has been like watching a movie where the soundtrack hasn't been synchronized with the actors' lips.

Meanwhile, we have become not a purple, but a Brown nation. As in Scott. Like Obama himself, Brown -- an imperfect candidate under any other circumstances -- was the right man in the right place at the right time.

COMMENT:  Well stated, although I think Brown was more solid as a candidate than Obama ever was.  Brown didn't, for example, have the baggage of Rev. Wright, a bunch of Marxists, and some strange history, trailing him around.  But Obama did have the media picking up after him.

We will look for hints tonight as to whether Obama wants to be Kennedy or Carter.  Kennedy had a sense of history, knew he had failed his first year, and worked to correct the problems.  Carter, the only self-proclaimed deity we had in the White House before Obama, had no sense of history, or even common sense, never recognized a failure that wasn't caused by the sinfulness, sloth and malaise of the American people, and did nothing to change.  He wound up being thrown out of office, with a bunch of hostages in Iran still waiting to be released.

January 27, 2010