I was absolutely certain that I'd never see more than a few episodes of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles when the cartoon first came on television. I was an adult at the time, but it must have been on at a time when I was getting dressed for work or something. In any case, it wasn't that I thought the cartoon was boring or badly done--if I've seen an entire episode all the way through I don't remember--I just remember thinking that the title of the cartoon was too long, that it had too many syllables, and that the whole thing was just too convoluted in general.
One of the turtles is named Michaelangelo for goodness sake. I thought that kids wouldn't be able to pronounce the characters names much less remember that entire tongue twister of a title. After all, I was an adult and I had make a few attempts to say it right and then try and remember it accurately enough to ask people with kids if their kids were watching it.
I was certain that the cartoon was going to disappear into oblivion in short order and that was before I asked anybody with kids a thing.
Well a thousands of cartoons, reruns and a big screen movie later its obvious that I couldn't have been any wronger.
I was just as sure that a country that had elected George W.Bush not once but twice...No wait, we/they only elected by once...um... I didn't think a country that will have allowed George W. Bush to remain in office for eight years was ready to elect a black man to office. And if you had told me last week that a black man would have come out on top in the 95% white IOWA caucus, I'd have laughed you out of the room. IOWA!
Other than the predicting the failure of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Franchise, I can't remember the last time I was wronger. But I can't remember any time that I was more glad to be wrong.
The only explanation I can think of is that there are people on both sides of the political aisle that are as disgusted with our politicians as I am. The people are ready for anything that doesn't look like status quo--and maybe that's Barack Obama.
Or maybe it was the Oprah factor. Oprah stood up for Obama and publicly supported him-the first time she's done this for a politician. Then again maybe she did more harm than good. While she was at an event for democrats she said that she's voted for just as many republicans as she has democrats--and didn't exactly get a standing ovation. Oprah's dedication to being unbiased (aka a strongly defined human being) and inoffensive to her viewers is stronger than her commitment to any particular set of group values which is what politics really is.
Whatever is power the Obama campaign along, Obama himself seems to be good at communicating hope and good feeling without dwelling too much on the substance, much like Ronald Regan.
The pundits are predicting that he'll beat Hilary by double digits in New Hampshire. We'll see. I saw people on C-Span talking about Hilary as if she'd already won the presidency, much less the democratic nomination. But, we'll see.
