Obamania in full swing

Obama has solid legislative accomplishments under his belt too. In the sink-or-swim Illinois statehouse, he brokered compromises on politically sensitive issues such as children's health coverage, racial profiling and tax credits for the working poor. In the U.S. Senate, Obama sponsored ethics reform legislation, legislation to ensure accountability of private military contractors and -- with Republican Sen. Richard Lugar -- a successful bill on securing global stocks of conventional weapons. That wasn't glamorous, but it was important. Conventional weapons, not WMD, kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Equally important, Obama's background and message are enabling him to reach beyond any narrow demographic slice of the electorate, and this bodes well -- both for his ability to beat a GOP rival and for his ability to lead effectively and without divisiveness once elected. Obama's high-powered endorsers also may have noticed something the mainstream media seem largely to have missed: If you add up the delegates won in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina, Obama's ahead, so far, with 63 delegates to Clinton's 48.

True, Clinton still has more super delegates -- those are the Democratic Party elites who each get a vote at the August convention and are not bound by the votes in their respective states -- but that's a vestige of her former status as the "inevitable" establishment candidate. Most of those super delegates came out for Clinton months before the primaries and caucuses began, and they're a notoriously fickle lot. With Edwards out, it's down to Obama and Clinton. And if Obama continues to win real delegates in real primaries, many of the super delegates in Clinton's column may instead join Kennedy in endorsing Obama.

There's been such a rush to endorse Obama that I'm starting to feel a bit left out. Admittedly, I'm not a senator or a Nobel laureate, but ... I'm starting to think I should endorse him myself. Why should Ted Kennedy get to have all the fun?