In the 1947 Broadway hit "Brigadoon", an American traveller is haunted by a brief encounter with a Scottish village that comes to life for a day every 100 years, before vanishing once more into the mists. It is a hokey Highlands tale, crammed with dodgy kilts and still dodgier lyrics-"Don't ye ken, There's a fair, Down on MacConnachy Square?"-but the premise is oddly moving. Back in his bar-hopping Manhattan life, the hero cannot shake off memories of the magical village and the girl he loved there. Barack Obama shows signs of being similarly haunted. The president's yearning centres on the more than 65m Americans who elected him in 2008 and again in 2012, rallied by his life story and flair for campaigning, then brought to the polls by a get-out-the-vote operation of nearly magical brilliance.
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