USA´s next Prez?

I could pretend this is business-related - after all, if you manage to elect another butthead who will kill your economy for good I will end up being jobless. Americans are responsible for no less than a third of our revenues.

There are a few opinionated Americans on this board, please give me a clue.

My opinion:
I have watched Obama´s Iowa "victory speech" on Youtube yesterday. He´s a brilliant speaker. Wow. Absolutely, err, touching, even for a cynic like I am. Jeez, I almost cried! :o
I´m pretty sure he will make it if he doesn´t say something very stupid in the next months, or if he won´t be assassinated (it happened before, so I wouldn´t rule that scenario out). Your thoughts?

But then:
Is this good news? He can speak for 25 minutes without saying something important. Is he just a good preacher, but the same kind of cynic like everybody else he claims to fight against? He has done a few weird things, like voting for Cheney´s energy bill. Why? Opportunism?
Doesn´t he set the bar too high for his own good? He will have to do some very unpopular things, should he really get elected.

Also:
What´s your word about Hillary? Is Edwards´ claim that "she represents the status quo" unfair or at least half true?

Finally:
Is there any chance a Republican can win this election? Who? And why? They all seem very pathetic to me, but then you guys have a record of electing pathetic Presidents, if you will pardon my saying so...