I've been truly amazed at the success some of our presidential candidates are having deflecting their records and convincing people what they say is true.
I knew it of Mitt Romney early on - his "man of the people" BS continues to reside in the right hemisphere of my brain simply because the left finds it all so illogical - the son of a multimillionaire who served as governor and also ran for President in the 60s, who attended the finest schools from childhood and had been given a "no-fail" contract with his former employer - Mitt painted himself blue, but couldn't quite disguise that silver sparkling from the spoon clenched tightly in his craw.
Then there is Hillary - with claims of "over 35 years experience" - experience at what?
Fighting idealog battles in her early 20s, snagging a lawyer-turned-politician husband, filling empty seats on favor-seeking boards of Arkansas corpporations - at what point in her lifetime of achievements has she ever produced something individually "Hillary"?  Perhaps those blind stares while the press hounded her about her husbands' many extra-marital affairs could classify as forays into acting, but I'm guessing it was just her calculating how much groveling from Bill it would all be worth down the road; and looks like the piper's come to be paid.
Bill has done everything in his power to bolster his wife's standing as a candidate, even at the expense of his own image.  I don't wonder how he sleeps at night, as I'm guessing there's a lot of crying involved and wishing he'd just bit the bullet and cut her loose 10 years ago.
The problem these three are having - not so much Mitt (yet) but Bill and Hillary - is that the internet has extended our information shelf life. 
When we have been so prone to getting fed up over something and moving on, we're now starting to revisit even the painful issues we'd just as soon put behind us thanks to the unrelenting terabytes of information accessible via the internet and those wonderful search engines that help dig it up.  We still need to know when to sort fact from fantasy, and often a quick check of the source works and even exposes those blatant attempts to obscure the past.  I've read Mitt's Wikipedia biography several times, and noticed how it's been changed from the start of the campaign to read more like a political ad in its present form.  Noone has to produce factual information for the Wikipedia data - anyone can contribute their perspectives irrelevant of actual fact.  But the truth is out there, and if you dig long and deep enough the sheer preponderance of evidence alone should be convincing enough to sort through historic fact from wish.
I spend hours each night watching cable news, commentary, discussion and interviews - my kids scold me for it often but frankly I think it beats "Suite Life" and "Hannah Montana"; though I'm sure it's all no less scripted to produce whatever mood the producers hope to generate that evening.  It's a pity they can't Google a little background first.
One of the real tragedies is how so many of our politicians fail to recognize that we have access to this "virtual memory" via the internet, and that we can see through the thinly-veiled attempts to distort the past.
Often playing the victim when cornered on irrefutable facts, these public figures attempt to deflect the truth with a shield of more misrepresentations.  Ultimately, there comes a point when the politicians try to hide an elephant with a handkerchief.  It may work from a distance, but the closer one gets the more obvious the deception.
Bill, Hillary and Mitt are masters of illusion - lucky for the American public they can't make the internet disappear.

   Call it a gut feeling, instinct or simply blind faith in a system that's been in place for decades, but as I entered the caucus room last night every nerve in my body was arcing with electric anticipation that something very significant  was about to happen.  My senses were greatly rewarded as I followed the precinct results drifting in throughout the night, and tuned this morning to an extremely animated "Morning Joe" crew raving about the caucus results.
People can see through the smoke generated by the media and campaigns to identify what we can and can't believe from a candidate. 
   So far, things are as they should be and one can only hope this momentum continues through New Hampshire and into Super Tuesday.  What I'd hoped for approximately one year ago may be coming to fruition - a true choice, for once in a presidential election: an Obama-McCain showdown.
The only question right now is whether or not Bloomberg makes a play.  If he does, then it's a win-win-win for the American voter.