Hope - That's so last week.

On the stump, Obama moves past hope

CHICAGO — The “hopemonger” is gone.

Barack Obama sounds more like a man trying to shake a rain cloud these days, dispensing a teeth-clenching, I-get-your-pain stump speech in town after town that offers only snippets of the unbridled optimism that long permeated his campaign pitch.

Beginning in the days before his party's convention, the inspirational has given way to the traditional: attacks on John McCain, a register of policy prescriptions and partisan language with the sting of a needle.

Could it be that now this is now longer a coronation Sen. Obama is being forced to do more than read bumperstickers off of his teleprompter to his fainting masses? The shine was coming off The One's halo before things went pearshaped with Sen. McCain's announcement of VP pick. I mean, Joe Biden? What in the name of all that's good and tasty in Odin's beard was he thinking? "I'm all about change, so I'm picking the consummate Washington insider". Brilliant.

In Sen. Obama's defense, his whole "change" gimmick is an utter load of crap engineered to fool the gullible. Did he change anything when he got involved in the corrupt machine that is the Chicago political system or did he kiss the ring of every power broker in the machine and do everything he could to maintain their power? That's right boys and girls, the latter. Do you honestly believe for one moment that he would somehow change that policy were he to be elected President?