Ravindr.

I’m the high school dropout with purple hair, yet I’m the only one out of my group of friends with a job.

I haven’t seen my abusive brother since I was 10 and he just found me on myspace.

Today my mother sent me a list of 25 ways I can improve myself.

Upon hearing of my father’s death, I calmly noted that people really do drop the phone when they hear bad news.

It was only appropriate that the one day that I, the most gullible student in the fourth grade at the time, did not believe a ridiculous story that someone told me was that day in September when the world changed forever.

If my exasperated mother hadn’t set me straight, I’d probably still think that cold turkey helped people quit smoking.

Everybody loved Moby. Then he got pompous with tea, and everybody hated Moby. Everybody loved John Mayer. Then he started blogging and sleeping with Jennifer Aniston, and now everybody hates John Mayer.

Everybody loved MySpace alternative Facebook. Then they introduced some sketchy advertising program, and everybody hated Facebook. Everybody loves Craigslist. So how come nobody, yet, really hates Craigslist?

Mr Obama has fought a brilliant campaign, out-organising his opponent, raising more money, and convincing undecided Democrats as well as the country at large that he was more likeable, more straightforward and more worthy of trust.

On form, he is a spell-binding orator and holds arena-sized audiences in thrall. He is given to airy exhortations, it is true, but genuinely seeks consensus and has cross-party appeal.

Mrs Clinton’s campaign, in contrast, has been a shambles. She and her team expected to have it all sewn up long ago; they made no plans for a long struggle, ran short of money and had to reorganise on the run.

Her speaking style is pedestrian, when it is not actually grating. Those who dislike her tend to do so with a passion: her disapproval ratings started high and after months of campaigning are climbing still. It is a tribute to her tenacity and to the loyalty she commands in the party that her fate was not sealed weeks ago.

How much the way that a campaign is run tells you about a candidate’s fitness to be president is debatable – but it does tell you something, especially if the candidate with the misfiring strategy is running on a claim of management expertise.