Sen. Obama made an important announcement on Monday Night Football. Allahpundit, who we stole this clip and subsequent commentary from, said “I like to picture the Clintons sitting together watching it, she with a look of annoyance, he trying to suppress a smile at the slickness of it all.” Hard to imagine that scenario NOT happening.
John Dickerson identifies Obama’s problem:
[C]oolness doesn’t get you elected, and coolness wasn’t what had the New Hampshire audiences even more excited after they heard Obama speak. They were in love with the senator’s message, a call to political renewal and rebirth that eschews what he calls the “24-hour, slash-and-burn, negative-ad, bickering, small-minded politics.â€â€¦
If he decides to run, Obama faces the difficulty of any politician campaigning against politics as usual—he can’t act politically or he ruins his brand… If voters stay in such a deep state of affection, they may get disappointed some day when he doesn’t walk on water.
He has acted politically, though: according to the New York Post, he’s got a perfect rating from lefty lobbyists Americans for Democratic Action — five points to the left of Teddy Kennedy, in fact. On the other hand, he’s got absolutely no foreign policy experience. Howard Kurtz thinks that makes him unelectable; I think it’s just the opposite. Decades of Bakerite realism got us to 9/11; three years of Bush’s idealism got us to the brink of civil war in Iraq. Why not try an unknown quantity?