Why on Earth should Obama have been paying any serious attention to Republican candidates messing around together? They aren't his opponents at this point.
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I was amused to see some stuff about "likability" as an issue in this Times Online story - with Clinton almost trying to spin the suggestion that Obama is more "likable" than she is as a weak point: ""In 2000, we unfortunately ended up with a president who people said they wanted to have a beer with, who said he wanted to be a uniter not a divider "

Though I remember at the time, in common I suspect with most people outside the USA anyway, I found the suggestion that Bush was "likable" and the kind of person you'd want to have at a social get-together quite astonishing. The kind of parties where he'd be the life and would would have to be well worth missing.

And that's not being biassed about politics - from what I've seen of him Huckabee would be welcome enough at a party. And he seems more at ease playing that bass than Bill Clinton ever did with that sax.