Chris Beam of Slate had much the same thought as my crew:
Obama looks like a Roman senator. Hillary looks like a guest star in Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Update 8:35 p.m.: A friend corrects me. More like Chronicles of Riddick.
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He's getting better, growing stronger, as this thing wears on.
Hillary looks good, but it's too late for her. McCain is looking weary. Obama is also appearing tougher, less "nice". I think McCain is going to get a shellacking.
And now that the Bush family is running the McCain campaign, and he's a "made man" with the Bush machine, the toadies on FOX and Talk Radio will now go full tilt against Obama. Which is sensational news for Obama: They'll infuriate every moderate Republican and independent in America.
Limbaugh's mouth will cost McBush the election.
His imitation of Obama using the "Kingfish" voice will be the next Imus scandal. Count on it.
If anyone has a copy of Rush doing it, please post it on YouTube.
Except Romans would never let a mulatto in the Senate, one of the reasons the Romans had such a long and strong, undiluted run of power, they kept power within the clans.
Cutter's comment is wildly incorrect. Roman Senators during the Principate and especially the Dominate periods came from all over the Empire and THAT is one of the reasons Rome's power stood for centuries (though it was hardly undiluted). Any Roman citizen had the right to stand for magisterial office (their jus honorem), regardless of their background. Another interesting fact is that under certain circumstances, and with approval, women could also become senators - though this was rare.
Treko: Don't forget horses, they could be senators too ;)
Actually, wasn't one of the Roman Emperors Palmyran? Perhaps he was only a runner up. In any event Palmyra had several senators at different times so the Romans didn't have a problem with foreigners, so long as they were Roman foreigners.
Roman Senators during the Principate and especially the Dominate periods came from all over the Empire and THAT is one of the reasons Rome's power stood for centuries (though it was hardly undiluted).
Well, yeah, but who wanted to be a senator during the Empire except effete social climbers and sycophants?
On the other hand, the Senate was happy to confirm any old rube as emperor, if he had enough legions in town, or sufficiently bribed the Senate and the praetorians.
The Roman Empire was pretty ployglot and its elite was pretty multi-ethnic,and multi-religious. You had emperors who were Arabs (Philip the Arab, Elagabalus) or of Spanish or North African origin (the Flavians and Severans), who had "barbarian" blood, who came from blue-blooded "pure" Roman families and who were of peasant (all those warlike Illyrians), or more pertinent to the comment on Obama, of slave origin (in the later Empire). Of course, slavery in Rome was ubiquitous and it had nothing to do with race - most slaves in Rome were what Americans would consider as "white people."
No, no, no. Obama is a Romulan, not a Roman. And Hillary reminds me of a female version of William Schallert's annoying Federation comissioner in "The Trouble With Tribbles"...
'...who had "barbarian" blood...'
I thought German or Celtic decent was the only disqualifier. You could be an honorary senator, like Vindex, but never emperor. Stilicho (half Vandal half Roman), if he thought he might live out the week, would certainly have seized one of the imperialates. He knew that he would not be tolerated - that weak, indolent cowards who would tolerate almost any indignity would risk death rather than be ruled by him.
You had to be a roman citizen. There was a certain percentage that had to come from the plebeians, who tended to fill out the lower administrative positions. This was intended to allow plebeians to move up the ranks. During the first Caesar the senate was refilled with handpicked people from outside rome, which is what really got the plots to kill caesar going. It wasn't exactly anything about genetics, considering in later years rome's plebeian population was fairly mixed, all things considered. it just mattered that you were born a citizen of the city of rome, and got yourself elected. the romans were fairly non-racist by some of our standards. they didn't consider blacks or semites to be any different than norther europeans and greeks. they enslaved them all. the romans respected the skills of other cultures. our sense of slavery is fairly modern, only existing within the last half-millennium.