The Barack Obama buzz has been humming since his 2004 Democratic Convention speech and recently reached shrill levels as he promotes his new book, "The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream," on the Today Show, Oprah, Meet the Press and others during the past month. The media has pushed the presidential button since his speech, but he has denied a run. In January, Obama told NBC he wouldn't run for president or vice president in 2008. But on Sunday's Meet the Press, he told Tim Russert:
"I would say I am still at the point where I have not made a decision to pursue higher office, but it is true that I have thought about it over the last several months... I don't want to be coy about this, given the responses that I've been getting over the last several months," he said. "I have thought about the possibility, but I have not thought about it with the seriousness and depth that I think is required."
The media's glowing reception of Obama (with little to no tough questions during interviews) was the subject on this week's Reliable Sources on CNN with Chicago's Lynn Sweet from the Sun-Times and Clarence Page of the Tribune. According to host Howard Kurtz, Obama has recieved a "puffy" treatment because he "is an impressive guy... But I come back to this question, why are journalists practically trying to -- including Clarence, practically trying to draft the guy into a presidential race when he's been a senator for just under two years?"
Page, who wrote a column calling on Obama to run, says he's "unblemished" in the midst of political scandals and an ethical wasteland, which is appealing to Americans. Sweet agrees:
[H]e hasn't even ever had a rough press conference. He's never had one negative ad run against him. He's untested, but that's the point.
He is a clean slate. That's why he is so appealing, because he has escaped some of the normal, you know, bad stuff that happens to people on the campaign trail. And here's the realization I think his people and Senator Obama is coming to, and it's this, you can't time timing.
Both journalists said they sense the sensitivity from his camp if they're asking the wrong questions and will get calls about any negative coverage. Although that won't particularly keep them from covering something negative about Obama, it's hard not to love him. Just check out how the Today Show fawned over him.
Kurtz responds: "I want to ask a more overarching question. Is there a hunger among journalists for a black politician who as seen as transcending race? Is that part of the appeal here?"
As Crystal Smith wrote a few weeks ago on this blog, the media embrace Black politicians as long as they don't bring up pesky racial issues.
Page brought up a similar question in his column, "Oprah, Obama and the leadership gap".
Yes, friends and neighbors, Obama is black or, more precisely, the famously half-black son of a Kenyan father and a white Kansas mom. But our curiosity should only begin with the realities of race, not end there.
The truly intriguing question is why do so many Americans get all warm and excited over the prospect of a viable black presidential candidate?
His answer?
1). "Celebrity star power matters. Just ask Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger."
2). "Symbols do matter... Of course, the irony is that the quest to elect a symbol of how America has moved beyond race means that Obama, Rice, Winfrey, Cosby, etc. must be judged at least in part on the color of their skin, not the content of their character, as Martin Luther King Jr. dreamed. This effectively reduces them into something less than the individuals they strive to be. Such are the ways of modern politics, which pit one media-created image against others. But they also help explain why Obama, among others, has good reason to avoid jumping into the presidential ring too soon, if at all."
and
3). "Widespread disappointment with the current lineup of likely 2008 presidential candidates." (Hillary Clinton, John McCain, etc.)
I think Page has it right with his conclusion:
I detect a national yearning for the sort of leader who not only manages daily problem-solving but actually transforms the times in which we live, as Ronald Reagan did from the right and John F. Kennedy from the left. Instead, we see a lineup of "transactional leaders," fixated on short-term remedies and surrounded by spin doctors.
So, where's my Obama '08 hat and sticker?
Aimee Rawlins @ October 24, 2006 - 6:29pm
The op-ed coverage on this issue has been interesting and wide spread. On Saturday, Maureen Dowd wrote a piece in the NYT that talked about Obama's surge of celebrity, including various stints as a coverboy for Men's Vogue, Vanity Fair and Washington Life. She ultimately concludes with the question, "Does Barack Obama want to be a celebrity or a man of history — or is there no longer any difference? "
On Monday, Bob Herbert wrote an op-ed (also in the NYT), encouraging Obama to wait things out a little longer and get some more experience in the Senate, claiming that it wouldn't be hard for the Republicans to put together a ticket to upset Obama.
Everyone has an opinion on Obama's potential to: 1) run and 2) win. The situation is made even more complex by his race and his growing celebrity. It will certainly be interesting to see how things play out with his candidacy, as well as to observe the role of the media in this process.
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