America's Dark Horse

There is a term in competition called, Dark Horse. This is one who is nominated unexpectedly, without previously having been discussed or considered as a likely choice. Often a dark horse is selected as a compromise when other, more prominent candidates' factions cannot come to an agreement. This metaphoric expression originally alluded to an unknown horse winning a race and was so used in a 1831 novel by Benjamin Disraeli titled "The Young Duke".

There is another book called "Dark Horse", written by Ralph Reed. It is his first book and a political thriller. Reed used to be the head of the Christian Coalition. His characters in the book clearly show the sexist views that he has had for years. His female characters are either alcoholics or sex fiends, and the males characters are white, power monger, religious men (which all seems somewhat contradictory from such a religious man...or is he?...) He did get his friends to write great reviews for him, though. Karl Rove, Sean Hannity, and Robert Novak seemed to love it, as I'm sure they see much of themselves in it...I rest my case...

I would imagine that both parties might feel that they have a dark horse running in this election. With McCain coming from behind for a while to finally take the lead after the Repug party totally ignored anything Ron Paul was saying, although he was pulling 28% approval ratings until the convention.

I am confindent that this years Dark Horse will be Barack Obama.

(c)Copyright 2008 Doug Boggs