Barack to basics

I did some research on Barack Obama, to find out a little more on who this "rising star" of the Democratic Party is. Among other things, I found an article on Salon.com by novelist Scott Turow. [link] Turow first got to known Obama in 1996, and later worked with Obama when Turow was a member of the Illinois commission that was reexamining the death penalty in that state, and Obama was a state senator who was influential in getting some of the proposed reforms passed into law.

Turow had this to say about Obama:

Adding it all up, the smart money has to be on Barack Obama to win in November and thereby to become a pivotal American leader. To be young, black and brilliant has always appeared to me to be one of the more extraordinary burdens in American life. Much is offered; even more is expected. You are like a walking Statue of Liberty, holding up the torch 24 hours a day. Yet Barack Obama, who spent his early years coming to terms with his heritage, is in every sense comfortable in his own skin and committed to a political vision far broader than racial categories.

Because they work for George W. Bush, and therefore cannot be regarded as influential political figures in the African-American community, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice may be the first blacks in government whose race is an afterthought in the public mind. If he wins, Barack Obama will also answer to a constituency that is principally white. As a result, he may become the first black Democrat able to rise above race in the fashion of Powell and Rice, and in doing so become the embodiment of one of America's most enduring dreams.

Turow's instinct matches my own (and that of my brother-in-law, who apparently echoed my prediction about Obama to my sister before he read it on Laboville). Obama has a quality -- an obvious comfort on the dais, an ability to speak to people instead of at them, and a set of achievements outside of politics that give what he says a certain authenticity -- that is all of those separate qualities rolled together so that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Give him a term or two in the Senate, and you could see Obama as a sort of real world Jed Bartlet, proving that smart is not the opposite of electable.

What a novel concept!