We just happened to catch Barack Obama’s speech live the other night. I was very impressed. He’s got just enough Baptist-preacher cadence to compel an audience looking for another MLK Jr., but not enough to sound as if he should be preaching religion instead of political reform. The choice of venue was genius, allowing him to point out that as an Illinois politician he has some legitimate claim to Lincoln’s mantel and taking away something from the Republican’s overused “party of Lincoln” line. He had enough vision and enough specifics for me, and the only wrong note was his claim to have a plan to “get us out of Iraq by March, 2008”. If he’s running for President, I want to hear what he’ll do as President, not what plans he’ll introduce now and have shot down by the current holder of that office. So far (and by this point, my optimism for anything in US politics is extremely tempered) he seems to have both the charisma to get elected and the heart and brain to do a decent job in office. We’ll see. I was very glad to have caught the speech, anyway.

This got me thinking about my first rowing club and an organizational theory I evolved there. One way for an organization to function well is to have a “good/cop / bad cop” duo at the top. In that case, the organization’s Vice President was a salty old guy who got things doneeven if it pissed people off on the way. The President was a very nice guy who enjoyed people, liked talking to them, and was good at smoothing things over. I do not think it would have worked as well if the roles had been reversed. The diplomat alone would never have gotten much done, but if the get-it-done guy had worked alone, the organization would eventually have splintered apart, and it probably would have gotten ugly. The two together made things work well and smoothly.

I was thinking here that an Obama / Clinton ticket, in that order, might actually work very well, in much the same way. Also, it’s a very balanced ticket in quite a lot of ways. I don’t think the reverse would work well, though.

In less-universally interesting news, I’m just beginning to notice some muscle growth from the weight-training I started at the beginning of this year. I should have expected it, with all the squats and lunges, but honestly I was thinking more about my legs growing stronger. I suppoose they are, but what I’m feeling is more about them growing bigger. I wouldn’t care, in terms of looks, but it does make clothing fit trickier. Right now my pants are being saggier in the seats and tighter in the thighs, which I suppose at least beats the other way around. At least that tends to mean it’s muscle.