Condi-mania hits the Outback

Sunday I was at a roadhouse 100 kilometers outside of Darwin in Australia's remote Northern Territory. I picked up a local paper, the Sunday Territorian. Once I got past the riveting local news ("Record crowd at Alice's camel capers" and "A 46-year-old woman was taken to the hospital suffering hand injuries after the vehicle she was driving collided with another..."), I was surprised to see that the Condoleezza Rice Presidential juggernaut has arrived even here. Reporter Julie Hinds writes:

"From my perspective, it's just not a woman, it's just not any woman, it's this woman, Condoleeza Rice," says Crystal Dueker of Fargo, North Dakota, national co-chair of Americans for Dr. Rice (Americansforrice.com). "She's got the iron will of Margaret Thatcher."

...

Dueker, who's been criss-crossing the country in her Mini Cooper, says she's always running into Condistas, a nickname for Rice supporters.

The article, which leads with the idea of any woman president and the novelty of a possible Hillary-Condi contest, is encouraging. I love the idea of Condoleezza Rice for President, and I'm happy to see that attention is building. Let's hope it continues.

UPDATE: It's a Knight-Ridder story, avaiable here (HT: Condi for President 2008). The Territorian's by-line doesn't mention Knight-Ridder, and makes it appear that Hinds works for them.