US politics: Obama Mania!!!

1. Barack's ready
Look beyond Obama's two years in the Senate and you'll see that he's well prepared to run for president.
By Rosa Brooks/LA Times

SO WHY not Barack Obama?

On his swing through New Hampshire last weekend, Obama drew rapturous crowds. But many pundits continue to assume that he'll be just a flash in the pan, sharing the fate of Howard Dean, the one-time Democratic hottie who flamed out before the campaign season ended.

Sure, say his detractors, Obama is a symbol of hope to Americans desperate for politics that transcend barriers of race, class and ethnicity. But charisma isn't everything — it can't make up for lack of experience. Obama has never been "tested." Can he withstand the rigors of the campaign trail? When the ads go negative (start looking now for sly insinuations that a man named Barack Hussein Obama can't be trusted!), will he fall apart? Can he handle the challenges of leading the world's last limping superpower through an era fraught with conflict and danger?

But Obama is nowhere near as unseasoned as his detractors suggest.

A political campaign isn't the only kind of test, and Obama's no stranger to the sort of criticism or hostility he'll face if he runs for president. With his racially mixed background (his father was from Kenya; his mother was a white American), his international upbringing (he spent part of his youth in Indonesia before returning to Hawaii, where he was born), and his penchant for work among the downtrodden and disaffected, Obama has spent his life struggling against those eager to discredit or exclude him. He's already faced tests of character and endurance. They were different in scale from those he'll face if he runs for president, but not different in kind.

In his years as a community organizer in Chicago, Obama had to unite disparate and mutually suspicious communities, and he eked out small victories over politics-as-usual, finding out the hard way that lasting change isn't easy. Later, in the Illinois Statehouse (not known as a nurturing environment for new-minted politicians), Obama earned a reputation as a guy who could get things done. The conservative Chicago Tribune endorsed Obama in his 2004 Senate run, praising his "significant accomplishments" and "shrewd negotiation." The Tribune credited Obama with "legislative feats," including laws requiring that police videotape interrogations in murder cases, laws creating tax credits for the working poor and "laws to track racial profiling by law enforcement, prohibit public officials from accepting lobbyists' gifts [and] expand health insurance coverage for children of the working poor and their families."

Obama bashers now complain that his two years in the U.S. Senate have been largely devoid of shock and awe. That's not a bad thing. Obama wisely hasn't tried to hog the limelight; instead, he's focused on issues that are unsexy but important.

He forged a sturdy partnership with Indiana Republican Richard Lugar, for instance, and the two successfully sponsored legislation that steps up U.S. support for global programs designed to secure or destroy stocks of conventional weapons, including shoulder-fired missiles, small arms and abandoned ordnance. (Hand-wringing about WMD is de rigueur in Washington, but most politicians forget that it's conventional weapons that kill U.S. soldiers in Iraq, allow terrorists to shoot down aircraft and fuel the bloody conflicts that have killed so many civilians from Darfur to Colombia.) On a dozen equally unglamorous issues, from global warming to our decaying public health system, Obama has shown a similar steady commitment.

In any case, experience, like charisma, can be overrated. A good president doesn't have to know everything about everything. (If he doesn't know anything about anything, of course, that's no good. We're still trapped in an unhappy national experiment with a guy in that category.) Good presidents strike a balance: They learn all they can, then appoint smart, thoughtful aides, people who can fill in the gaps in their own knowledge and serve as honest brokers. At the end of the day, good presidents need the judgment and common sense necessary to make tough decisions. But to get there, they need to know how to listen and how to nurture, rather than crush, dissenting voices.

In his two years in the Senate, Obama has already earned a reputation for doing just that. Like every good leader, he knows what he doesn't know — and reaches out to those who do, whatever their party affiliation. He's worked with Republican senators such as Sam Brownback on Darfur and Congo, sought out military leaders such as Maj. Gen Scott Gration and Gen. Jim Jones, and consulted with foreign policy veterans such as Tony Lake and Jim Steinberg.

And many of the experienced Washington hands who've seen Obama in action are as impressed as the New Hampshirites who thronged his book signings. Former Assistant Secretary of State Susan Rice, who's been consulted by any number of prospective candidates over the last few years, was blunt: "I've been around long enough not to waste my time trying to talk to politicians who just aren't educable. Obama's different. He has judgment and intelligence, but he knows how to listen and take on insights from other people too."

So why not Obama? Contrary to what his detractors suggest, he can offer prose as well as poetry, and this country desperately needs both.

In the end, when it comes to the question of his relative inexperience, Obama himself offers the best retort: "Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld have an awful lot of experience." 'Nuff said.

(rbrooks@latimescolumnists.com)


2. Run Now, Obama -- by George F. Will/Washington Post

New Hampshire was recently brightened by the presence of Barack Obama, 45, who, calling the fuss about him "baffling," made his first trip in 45 years to that state, and not under duress. Because he is young, is just two years distant from a brief career as a state legislator and has negligible national security experience, an Obama presidential candidacy could have a porcelain brittleness. But if he wants to be president -- it will not be a moral failing if he decides that he does not, at least not now -- this is the time for him to reach for the brass ring. There are four reasons why.

First, one can be an intriguing novelty only once. If he waits to run, the past half-century suggests that the wait could be eight years (see reason four, below). In 2016 he will be only 55, but there will be many fresher faces.

Second, if you get the girl up on her tiptoes, you should kiss her. The electorate is on its tiptoes because Obama has collaborated with the creation of a tsunami of excitement about him. He is nearing the point when a decision against running would brand him as a tease who ungallantly toyed with the electorate's affections.

Third, he has, in Hillary Clinton, the optimal opponent. The contrast is stark: He is soothing; she is not. Many Democrats who are desperate to win are queasy about depending on her. For a nation with jangled nerves, and repelled by political snarling, he offers a tone of sweet reasonableness.

What people see in him reveals more about them than about him. Some of his public utterances have the sponginess of Polonius's bromides for Laertes ("neither a borrower nor a lender be . . . to thine own self be true"). In 2005 the liberal Americans for Democratic Action and the AFL-CIO rated his voting record a perfect 100. The nonpartisan National Journal gave him an 82.5 liberalism rating, making him more liberal than Clinton (79.8). He dutifully decries "ideological" politics but just as dutifully conforms to most of liberalism's catechism, from "universal" health care, whatever that might mean, to combating global warming, whatever that might involve, and including the sacred injunction Thou Shalt Execrate Wal-Mart -- an obligatory genuflection to organized labor.

The nation, which so far is oblivious to his orthodoxy, might not mind it if it is dispensed by someone with Obama's "Can't we all just get along?" manner. Ronald Reagan, after all, demonstrated the importance of congeniality to the selling of conservatism.

Fourth, the odds favor the Democratic nominee in 2008 because for 50 years it has been rare for a presidential nominee to extend his party's hold on the presidency beyond eight years. Nixon in 1960 came agonizingly close to doing so (he lost the popular vote by 118,574 -- less than a vote per precinct -- and a switch of 4,430 votes in Illinois and 24,129 in Texas would have elected him) but failed. As did Hubert Humphrey in 1968 (he lost by 510,314 out of 73,211,875 votes cast), Gerald Ford in 1976 (if 5,559 votes had switched in Ohio and 7,232 in Mississippi, he would have won) and Al Gore in 2000 (537 Florida votes). Only the first President Bush, in 1988, succeeded, perhaps because the country desired a third term for the incumbent, which will not be the case in 2008. So the odds favor a Democrat winning in 2008 and, if he or she is reelected, the Democrat nominated in 2016 losing.

Furthermore, remember the metrics of success that just two years ago caused conservatives to think the future was unfolding in their favor: Bush carried 97 of the 100 most rapidly growing counties; the center of the nation's population, now southwest of St. Louis, is moving south and west at a rate of two feet an hour; only two Democratic presidents have been elected in the past 38 years; in the 15 elections since World War II, only twice has a Democrat received 50 percent of the vote. Two years later, these facts do not seem so impressive.

In 2000 and 2004, Bush twice carried 29 states that now have 274 electoral votes; Gore and Kerry carried 18 that now have 248. Not much needs to change in politics for a lot to change in governance. And Obama, like the rest of us, has been warned, by William Butler Yeats: All life is a preparation for something that probably will never happen.

Unless you make it happen.

(georgewill@washpost.com)


3. The Dreamy Candidate With the Swoon Vote -- by Libby Copeland/Washington Post

It is sometimes called a bubble or a boomlet or a bandwagon. A new political figure arrives on the national stage and audiences swoon. Suddenly, mysteriously, and without anybody knowing much about him, he is The One, the next hot thing, eclipsing all other presidential wannabes.

(Until he isn't anymore.)

This bubble is not love -- as anyone who was ever 15 years old can testify. This bubble is infatuation. Political infatuation. Presidential contenders can be the subject of crushes just as surely as that new kid in high school, and in both cases it's what you don't know about the person that forms much of the appeal.

Speaking of which, there's this transfer student we've been eyeing in Miss Fischer's P.E. class. Name's Barack or something. Big dark eyes, great cheekbones. From Illinois. Don't know much about him, but, boy, is he dreamy.

* * *

When Sen. Barack Obama descended on New Hampshire earlier this week, the crowds were rapturous. The Illinois Democrat was compared to JFK and Elvis, and one woman told Slate, "I'm not comparing him to Jesus Christ, but . . . " All of this necessitated some comment from Obama about what he calls the "hype" surrounding him.

"People are very hungry for something new," he said. "I think to some degree I'm a stand-in for that desire."

Oh, no, baby, this is for real.

This was a statement at once self-deprecating and astute, pointing to a potential source of trouble for the senator should he heed the calls of many panting Democrats and run for president. Because the truth is, Obama, like many objects of political desire before him (including Howard Dean and Wesley Clark) is in great part beloved for what people imagine about him, rather than what they know.

A few years ago, some political scientists studied this phenomenon. Jon Krosnick, a Stanford University professor, says he and others looked at nearly 25 years of electoral surveys. They found that, despite the widespread notion that voters are predisposed to dislike politicians, voters are instead inclined toward good feelings when presented with a candidate they know nothing about.

"When people have no information, they are hopeful and optimistic that this is the knight in shining armor they've been waiting for to rescue the American political system," Krosnick says.

Some of this is fueled by a basic optimism, Kronick says, and some of this is fueled by dissatisfaction with the rest of the field of candidates, according to Samuel Popkin, a political scientist at the University of California at San Diego.

"When there's a bandwagon for a new person, it's always got something to do with disaffection with the people who are already there," Popkin says. "You don't get a boom like this when people are happy."

(By "people who are already there," insert Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton. Everybody knows Hillary. Voters carry strong impressions of the New York senator, for better and for worse. )

If initial good feelings are backed up by positive impressions (a deep voice, great speechifying, youthful good looks), a lovefest can steamroll. First impressions tend to carry greater weight than later ones, so a good first impression is powerful. And if all you know is the good, it's easy to make the leap that there is no bad. And, as with romantic crushes, idealization blossoms. "Low information infatuation," Popkin calls it, the phenomenon that takes place before a first date, when you've spoken to a potential love interest on the phone, and "you know just enough to imagine everything else is the way you want it." He's the sort of guy who's great with babies and plays rugby.

In his book, "The Reasoning Voter," Popkin went so far as to quote the French novelist Stendhal on love in the context of how voters think: "Realities model themselves enthusiastically on one's desires."

Crushes are as much about the crusher as the crushee. Crushes are dangerous. By their very nature, they're intense and fleeting. Sometimes, you find out something disappointing about the object -- the dealbreaker, say he picks his nose -- and the whole house of cards collapses. In the political landscape, crushes can't last long under the scrutiny of the national stage. Already, questions have begun to arise about Obama's dealings with a donor named Antoin "Tony" Rezko.

The other team weighs in. Republicans have been suggesting that with Obama, there 's no there there. He's the "Rorschach Candidate," writes conservative commentator John Podhoretz. He's "a blank canvas," said Republican consultant Ed Rogers. Are you sure he can support you?

Of course, a crush can also turn into love of the long-term, stable sort. Sober. Honest. Not the kind they write about in romance novels, but the sort that causes people to mate for life.

And vote.