No kidding. Look, it's just standard political salesmanship, Sawzaw. It's the outward gyrations and maneuverings of an utterly corrupt system. The Democratic and Republican parties basically work for exactly the same interests, that is they work for the largest financial powers in society which would be the biggest banks, the biggest insurance companies, the pharmaceutical industry, the major corporations, the military-industrial complex....the whole giant octopus of major money interests that controls big business, mass media, the flow of commerce, the creation of money, the formation of domestic and foreign policy, etc.

Government decisions are made to satisfy the desires and requirements of that group of people...NOT the desires and requirements of the ordinary public.

Do you think Rome was run on behalf of the ordinary public? No. It was run on behalf of the few rich people at the top. When the ordinary public got restless (as often happened) the rich people at the top would put on some gladiatorial games...or give out some free bread and wine...or fix the public's attention on a foreign war and raise a frenzy of patriotism to distract people...etc.

And that's what is done in the USA. Same basic approach.

Obama had to sell himself effectively to get elected. Selling yourself effectively can best be done by appealing in a passionate way to the hopes and dreams of the ordinary people. So that is what he did. McCain tried to do that too...far less successfully, because he's a dinosaur. Sarah Palin tried to do it too...and she did it fairly well, but to a narrower constituency than Mr Obama, and at a far less fortuitous time, following 8 disastrous years of Republican misrule. It was time for a Democratic phony government to replace a Republican phony government...as happens in a cyclical fashion at various intervals...but it's like changing the curtains on the windows of your jail cell.

Well, get ready now for at least 4 years of Democratic misrule, because those 2 parties are both as phony as a 13 dollar bill, they lie to get elected, they lie after they are elected, and they do NOT serve the ordinary public. They serve a rich oligarchy of established interests.

They will throw a few crumbs to the public now and then, they must do it now and then to maintain some degree of social confidence, but that's all, just a few crumbs. Meanwhile, the big phony game goes on, and the game is run by the owners, and the owners answer to no one but themselves. Their front men (the presidents) come and go. They remain. Their sons (and a few daughters here and there) will continue their rule when they are gone.