I had been meaning to respond to Kristine's post about Obama for some time, but in order to do my response justice, it would need to be longer than comment at the end. And so Kristine, in fair defense of "the fad":
While I agree that the question of "electability" is a phenomenon that is unprecedented before the Information Age, I believe that Obama is very likely to be a Lincolnesque candidate because of factors you do not address in your post.
First, you say that the "age of electability based on charismatic leadership is over" but do not support this assertion in anyway. I think particularly after seven years of an administration lacking in charisma, diplomatic progress, and frankness with the American people, an well-spoken outsider would be very well-received by the masses. Furthermore, despite the sleuth of past politicians you compare to Obama, you neglected one very notable example--an obscure, young, and inexperienced senator from Massachusetts, John F. Kennedy. Kennedy was the youngest and least-experienced presidential candidate of his time, yet he had the right message at the right time, and in the end that is all that mattered.
I went to see Barack Obama speak at George Mason University on February 2nd. It was the first political rally advertised by Facebook alone. The venue, George Mason's student union, which is about the size of a small shopping mall, surged beyond capacity (and likely beyond fire standards) and was full to the brim with people hoping to hear a snippet of his message. This was eight days before he would officially announce his candidacy, and already a few thousand people, some coming from across the country, were packing into a small space to hear what he had to say. Because the space was so small, and not really designed to accommodate such a crowd, only about one-fourth of the attendees could actually see him. I could only see him fraction of the time through the legs of a tv cameraman's tripod.
I went because my girlfriend is from Chicago and is a full-blown Obama zealot, but I remained a skeptic. However, as I stood staring through the tripod I realized that what he was saying was exactly what I had been waiting and dying to hear for seven years, and I was not the only one. There were tears in the eyes of young people around me, and what was perhaps most remarkable was that his message was not only “vote for me,” and “my policies are better than their policies.” His message was one of empowerment for young people hoping to make an impact on their future and the future of their country. Remember “ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country”? And his inexperience didn't bother me in the least. In fact, after hearing him cite his positions and statements denouncing the War in Iraq, lobbyist corruption and the disappearance of a middle-class--before being elected--I found it a positive mark that he was not associated with the Congress of the last seven years, made up of rubber-stamp Republicans and do-nothing Democrats.
One of those do-nothing Democrats was Hillary Clinton, now in trouble for her tight-rope balancing act on her position on the war. In this way, she is no different from John Kerry. And like all the other Democrats who voted for this war, she will eventually have to admit this decision was a mistake or be left behind. Knowing what I know about red states, having lived in Kansas for 18 years, I know that absent a total Republican melt-down, she will win in none of the states Kerry lost in ’04, Ohio included regardless of how well she has been vetted.