The Core Of Obama's Appeal

Reason's Steve Chapman writes:

Barack Obama's success so far in this campaign is a puzzle. How is it that a youngish first-term senator with so many disadvantages—a slight resume, a foreign-sounding name, an exotic background, a professorial manner, a thoroughly liberal voting record, and a skin color unlike any previous president—has come so far, and even leads in national polls with less than two weeks to go?

He does have some things going for him, of course: his rhetorical skill, his unflappability, and not least of all a financial crisis that reflects badly on the party occupying the White House. But none of those explains how he managed to defeat a daunting Democratic rival and outshine an inspiring war hero with demonstrated crossover appeal. If you had written the story as fiction a few years ago, publishers would have rejected it as grossly outlandish.

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