He has funny but friendly ears.
Eyes that are intense but endearing.
And if you'll pardon the barrage, he's tall, youthful, chiseled, athletic and exotic.
His voice resonates sincerity. He's not slick nor given to anger the way, say, Bill Clinton is. He dislikes gutter politics. You see it in his eyes.
His message is change--peace, prosperity, harmony--but his stance is one of insistent independence from sad norms of this low, dishonest decade.
In short, Barack Obama is the political equivalent of a rock star.
When has either party offered such an attractive nominee? Go down the list.
Johnson? Nixon? McGovern? Ford? Carter? Dukakis? Mondale? Bush 41? Gore? Kerry? McCain? Don't mention Dubya. To this day, about two-thirds of Americans change the channel when his mug fills the screen. He has anti-charisma.
Reagan? Bill Clinton? Kennedy? Sure, they had charisma, but even they never routinely drew the excited crowds Obama attracts wherever he goes, and this campaign's abuilding, my friend. Just watch.
That's why barring some unspeakable tragedy Obama will thump John McCain. I say this with some fear and trembling. After all, I've been wrong before.
I thought Kerry would beat Bush. I flat predicted eight years ago that Gore would clean Bush's clock. I was wrong. Gore got more votes, but not enough to seal the deal given a Republican slant to the Supreme Court and our enslavement to the old-timey Electoral College.
But Gore's destiny is not Obama's, for these three reasons:
Charisma, charisma, and charisma.
OK, that's shallow, so here are five more:
First, Swift-boating will not stick to Obama. His long, fierce fight with Hillary renders him nearly immune to more smear and scandal. So do years of hypocritical fear mongering from Dubya and other Republicans. Most Americans see through such shenanigans now.
Lies and innuendos stuck to Gore and Kerry because they were famously wooden. When Republicans pitched the bald-faced lie that Gore claimed to have single-handedly invented the Internet, Gore should've knocked that it out of the ballpark. Instead, he tried laughing it off. Unfortunately, he has a wooden laugh. When Bush 41 accused him of being the Ozone Man, he should've embraced the moniker and then elevated the conversation. Nothing could be more clear than how right Gore was about ozone and other environmental issues. Straight talk might've turned the tide, but Gore was aloof.
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