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It was on the far right, literally. A tiny block of space someone had purchased to help The Rake live another day. Pay up, and you can paste your sign/add your link/sing your song on my web page/television/telephone/window/door/floor/car/bus/butt/etc...

In the ultimate capitalist pervasion of everyday life, this heat-seeking piranha of an ad jumped at me, propelled by the finely tuned instincts of specialized software, somewhere in cyberspace, sensing Barack Obama's name on the page and inferring from it the presence of intellectual prey.

There I was, and there it was, so close:

"The Real Barack Obama (link) The truth behind the canditate (sic)" - "Barack Obama Exposed - Free!" (with another link)

I hesitated. The piranha bit down hard. I clicked!

...and could almost feel the blood rush:

"From his radical stance on abortion to his prominence in the corruption scandals that has been virtually ignored by the mainstream media, Barack Obama is not fit to be Senator -- not to mention the next President of the United States. Obama has declared his presidential intentions, but it is up to well-informed and energetic conservatives like you to spare our nation from the scourge of a far-left President Barack H. Obama."

Presidential politics is the grand stage of the most aggressive promoters, the truest believers. Neglect their theater and they will seek you out, seek to turn you out. I slept through the 2004 and 2000 elections. Even now, I was placidly detached. But this impassioned gnome of an ad leapt from the stage, snatched me from the placid pages of an innocent, literate webzine, and forced me, drove me, deep into its chosen thicket of passion and intrigue.

I was in the hunt. I clicked a link, then another, and got:

"It must be just me! I mean, does anyone else see the lying racist? The Obamination of this country is about to walk right into the Democratic nomination and no-one is doing a damned thing about it! PEOPLE...Obama hates this nation and WHITE people! HELLO! Is anyone out there? Are you folks so stupid and blind that it is already over? Is America already doomed from the inside out? Was President Lincoln correct when he said this nation will only be defeated from within?! Jesus people...can't you see what is happening here? Wake up! The man will not cover his heart during the National Anthem...oh god...I could go on forever!"

Hokey smoke! From clever, benign, literacy to full frontal attack in three clicks. I recalled twentieth century sites affixing Bill Clinton's name to the legends of dead people, many legends, many dead people - the Clinton Body Count, they called it. One page had animated graphic blood dripping down the sides. I remembered admiring the enthusiasm (and the graphics!) more than the argument. Had I convinced myself that towering invective was unique to Bill? The question begged for investigation.

I enlisted Google.

"Barack Obama exposed" brought 38,500 Google "results". Oh, my! A huge number. But compared to what? I tried for context.

"Hillary Clinton exposed" scored 12,600 pages, a bare third of Obama's total; "John McCain exposed" an almost negligible 2,350. It's an Obama phenomenon. But why?

My brain churned through the usual suspects. Is the web's free wheeling candor a cultural Petri dish, nurturing explosions of racist bacteria? Does Obama's generic celebrity merit the poisonous paparazzi pursuit of Paris or Britney? Are the White Knights of the Right so certain of their enemy that they write off Hillary as a dead woman walking?

Or was I, naive in the ways of The Web, missing the connotation of "exposed"? Perhaps it's that Obama is, how to put this delicately, hot? I tried something else.

"Barack Obama nude" brings 725 results, but "Hillary Clinton nude" launches 21,200 pages.

Aha! The light goes on. Sealing the deal, "John McCain nude" scores a pitiful 64. That's it!

It's about testosterone. The Bad Old Surfer Dudes want to see women naked and new kids trashed. What about McCain? 64 "results" close that question. Nobody cares about the old guy. He's not a threat.

I'd like to think elections are about ideas and principles, about who would do the best job. But there's waaaay more than that. Frank Luntz theorizes it's about talking to the reptilian brain: "80 percent of our life is emotion, and only 20 percent is intellect." I think I've found supporting evidence.