John McCain vs. Barack Obama is, at bottom, a smart vs. stupid election.

Obama himself may not be a moron, but his supporters are defined by their naïve vision, their inability to grasp how the world really works, their devotion to theory over fact. Obama is the candidate of the Saturday morning cartoon, the children’s fairy tale, the Disney happy ending. McCain is the candidate of reality—but how many Americans want to face reality?

The outcome of McCain vs. Obama will signal to the rest of the world where America wants to go. If Obama wins, it will inform the world that America really does have an inferiority complex, and that it now prefers to model itself after Europe. If McCain wins, the rest of the world will know that America still regards itself as exceptional, unique, different.

If Obama wins, we’ll know that our country took no lasting lessons from the Johnson and Carter years, and that left-wingers simply have to wait for the passage of time before they can once again seize Executive Branch power. If McCain wins, we’ll know that the old values still mean something—not the old values of racism, as the left will undoubtedly claim, but the old values of honor, courage, dignity, sacrifice, decency.

Obama’s supporters speak of change—but what change can this child of a candidate possibly provide? His mind has been contaminated with extremist liberal thought. He has never crossed party lines in a meaningful manner. He is merely a well-spoken ideologue, a more refined Jesse Jackson.

Obama is a hallucination, a cipher absent of substance and gravitas. He is eerily similar to the last Democrat we elected President. Why would thinking people want to replicate past mistakes?

Non-thinking people don’t know any better: this, of course, is what Obama is exploiting. Obama is a classic grifter, a confidence man who promises diamonds before delivering pebbles. His urban supporters in particular will be just as hope-deprived at the end of his administration as they were at the end of Clinton’s two terms. Nothing will change.

“Obama ‘08” signs can now be found throughout America’s economically distressed neighborhoods—neighborhoods filled with voters who do not realize how skillfully they have been hustled. Obama has seduced them and will betray them: his urban advocates have yet to learn that those of Obama’s political class ultimately bear responsibility for their hopeless plight.

These neighborhoods are filled with nominal Christians who, so we are told, abhor abortion and the secular culture. Why, then, have they thrown their support behind Obama, the most radically pro-abortion candidate in US history and a man embraced by the icons of amoral popular culture? Ignorance is the only explanation.

Obama is ruthless in his exploitation of these people. He has nothing in common with his urban supporters—but, as he showed in Illinois, he is a genius at taking advantage of their lack of sophistication in order to obtain and maintain political power. Obama rehearsed his act in Illinois for years. Now, it’s time for his concert to begin in earnest.

Obama will receive unprecedented support from urban America: these voters have been led to believe that Obama is the heir to the legacy of Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Nelson Mandela, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman and other such leaders. To rational people, linking Obama with these accomplished leaders is BS—but nothing is rational in urban America, thanks to the Democrat Party.

Urban America is already being told that McCain is a bigot and a fascist, a hater of those not of his kind, a devil in a suit. It’s an old message. Urban America was once told that “twelve years of Reagan-Bush” caused the 1992 Los Angeles riots. Urban America was once told that Richard Nixon and George Wallace were one and the same. Urban America was told that George W. Bush didn’t care about black people. Urban America bought this stuff before, and urban America will once again buy it in November.

Urban America’s overwhelming support could help make Obama the next President of the United States. Of course, Obama will pay lip service to these voters, while delivering the goods for his real constituents—antiwar radicals, labor unions, defenders of Roe v. Wade, trial lawyers, the environmental lobby, etc. They will get everything; urban America will get nothing…and urban America won’t even realize it.

As I said, this is a smart vs. stupid election.