Obama declares
His father was a leader from a small tribe in Kenya, his mother a white American from Kansas.
Did you know that Obama's mother spent her teenage years on Mercer Island in Washington State? No, of course not. Neither did I until Obama came here and told the crowd about his Mercer Island connection. I'm betting you won't hear much about this in the coming months. Kansas sounds better than Mercer Island.
Voters clearly don't know anything much at all about Obama except that they like his personality and the emphasis on "hope."
Political scientists refer to this as low-information reasoning. In the absence of real information voters use a few facts and anything else they can conjure up from the cursory coverage they've seen and develop an impression of somebody. Because of what's known as Gresham's Law of politics new information based on personality trumps old information about issues. So personality is key in the early stages of a campaign.
But personality is never enough. At some point the voters will demand to know more, especially when rivals attack the candidate's record (or lack of a record).
Vide: Gary Hart in 1984.
It will be at that moment that we'll know if Obama is the real thing or just another passing celebrity phenom.
My fear is that he's not a passing phenom and that there's a real chance the Democratic Party will nominate him.
This would be bad for him and bad for the country, for reasons outlined in previous posts.
For his sake and ours: I hope he loses the race.