Primary questions

On this night of Hillary Rodham Clinton's surprise win over Barack Obama in New Hampshire, I am wondering:

* Why on earth (literally, since no other democracy on the planet has to bear with such lunacy) do we have to spend two years watching presidential candidates breathlessly run around the country doing their campaign thing?

* Why is said lunacy apparently going to cost one billion dollars this time around?

* Why do people trust polls? Tonight, according to those sacred cows, Hillary was going to get clobbered by Barack. Even her own in-house polling came to that conclusion. So Hillary took an early lead and stayed ahead all the way. (And I suppose that by 8 a.m. the pollsters will start calling people in South Carolina and Michigan.)

* In 2009, will the vociferous protestations against Bush-blest corporate greed presently coming from the mouths of the top Democratic candidates actually take hold in the White House? Now THAT would be change.