He’s the first presidential candidate I’ve actually felt was smarter than I am.
Also, the charisma has been mentioned… charisma, hell. The man is a rock star. He is an electrifying speaker, and I believe that he believes what he is saying.
I would like to echo Jophiel. It came down to policies originally for me. I wanted Kucinich, Edwards, Obama / Richards… then the trail.
After I heard an Obama speech, read another one and read part of his book I was sold. Also helps that my first two fell out soon after… =)
I voted in Oregon recently. I didn’t get to go see the 70K+ people that he drew at riverside park unfortunately. The guy has some excellent charisma that the US needs at its head after our current fiasco.
Obama has limited experience at the national level, but this is part of his appeal. As a freshman senator he carries no baggage, he’s not associated at all with anything people hold against the Clinton Admin, and not very much with the Congressional Dems who have failed so egregiously to stand up to Bush. He is not, as some candidates have in the past, running as a Beltway outsider challenging the ossified Washington establishment, but he doesn’t need to, it’s just there.
What’s to explain?
Barack Obama is a rational and intelligent person. He’s charismatic and inspirational. He has government experience and has been a teacher of constitutional law. He has no major negatives.
That’s a key difference between the two that’s impressed me as well.
Edwards has always appeared to me as someone on the make, despite his claims to being a man of the people and (repeated endlessly) “the son of a millworker” (nice mansion ya got there, John).
Obama seems to be a pretty decent person for a politician. That kind of vibe is rare.
My take…
He’s honest and honorable. I believe he believes what he says. He’s obviously a smart and well educated guy. I consider his lack of inside-the-Beltway experience a plus, not a minus. He’s human and is open about it, able to apologize and, more importantly, admit when he’s wrong.
Plus, you kind of have to admit, the man has run a kick-ass campaign, all but sewing up the nomination while remaining a positive force and without tearing down his opponents.
Obama, IME, is nothing less than admirable, and the kind of leader this country needs, and the worlds wants, right now.
Like me, my son’s also bitter. That’s why the one American citizen of the two will be voting for Obama in Fla. Oh and his mom’s pretty bitter too. That’s two bitter-votes right there.
Conclusion: Bitter people like Obama because he offers them hope. And they appear to be a heck of a lot of them. A majority in fact.
Wonder what’s made them bitter to begin with? Bullshit wars and a failing economy? Nah, couldn’t possibly be that.
When he ran for Senate in 2004 there were Obama stickers and buttons all over southern Illinois.
Some may say that was because he was running against Alan Keyes, but the overwhelmingly white, older farmers and blue-collar workers that live south of Springfield could have just held their noses and voted for the lesser of two evils. Instead, they actually supported a black guy from Chicago.
In that race, he got 70 percent of the vote. Again, you could say he was running against a weak candidate, but Obama got 700,000 more votes than John Kerry. That meant there had to be a lot of Republicans who crossed party lines to vote for a black guy from Chicago.
Compare this map of the Senate race to this map of the House races. Look at all that red down the center of the state in the Illinois House races and compare it to all the blue in the Senate race.
You can scoff at his inexperience and disagree with his politics, but you have to concede that there’s something about the man that inspires people to come out and vote for him.
I’d agree to the positives mentioned above. Intelligence. Eloquence! The ability to inspire. I also support what he has said about beginning to change the politics are done. More transparency from our elected officials. I hope he means it and we the public will support him in insisting our officials get in line. Plenty on both sides won’t want to. The corruption is such a long standing tradition that the power brokers seem to see it as their inherited right of office.
I’d also like to openly say that his race does play a role for me. I think by finally allowing the best candidate to be president without gender and race bias stopping gifted and capable people from being serious candidates, we {The US of A} will be making a statement about the growth of our society to the rest of the world. We will begin to no longer be seen as only the white, Anglo Saxon, Christian nation that thinks we own the world. We will tell other nations we realize we are an varied and complex society made up of different races and creeds. I can foresee that helping foreign relations enormously. That should make a difference as the world gets smaller.
Keep in mind too, that Edwards was part of the losing team in the 2004 election. NOW, his running mate, John Kerry, is endorsing Obama, not his former partner.
And yes, I’m voting for Obama for all of the reasons above, plus I feel that his positions on the issues are closer to my own than Edwards’s-or Hillary’s.
See what you started, What the … !!! 
He is the only major politician I have seen who seems to listen to the question he is asked when being interviewed and (usually) actually answer the fucking question.
Lately I’ve seen him getting a bit more sound-bitey, but early on it sounded like he was actually having a conversation with Tim Russert or whoever, not just spewing back the designated talking point in the general area of the question asked. Moreover, he seems to be able to give a nuanced response to something, and not just dumb everything down to a simple black and white issue.
More generally, I just like to hear him speak. Between content and tone, Clinton seems screechy and annoying and McCain just puts me to sleep. (Bush makes me scream and yell at the television, but oddly enough I enjoyed listening to Huckabee.) When Obama speaks, it sounds like he’s addressing the audience as rational beings.
More important, I largely agree with his policies, which are mostly indistinguishable from the other major Democrats. Though having read his books, it seems to me he has actually approached his platform from a rational, thoughtful basis, rather than just signing on to what he thinks is popular. Still, it is his personal presentation which sold me on him over the rest of the bunch.
He is extrememly smart and genuine and he doesn’t seem to want to use his smarts for evil (Nixon).
Did I say it was bad? No, I held it up as an example of a striking (to me) difference between the two candidates.
I tend have a bit of admiration for those who choose the public over the private sector, especially when it appears they are turning from a sure road to wealth, comfort, power and influence, to a much dicier, risk-laden, more thankless task.
Granted, Obama could always have changed tracks if he desired, but I still am impressed by the effort.
QtM, public employee while some of my old classmates are cleaning up bigtime in the private sector.
A fun trip that machine! Included is a very unimpressed Liberal and this from a noticing ElvisL1ves. Funny stuff.
Any way. To answer the op seriously, Obama has one well articulated vision of America and Edwards has another. Edwards’ vision is one of one victimized America standing up to the other America … you know, the one he consulted for and took money from. He articulated that the needed approach was to fight and beat down the other side. Some believed in his earnestness but others sensed something less than real and his message found no mass appeal this time round. Obama’s vision is not one of victimhood or of beating down the other side. It has been a vision in which we rise towards a shared vision of what this country can be if we work together.
After the Bush and Clinton years and its constant sniping America is hungry for that vision. It has found mass appeal.
I see. So Edwards is a Trotskyist, and Obama is more like a Menshivik?
Trotsky was a Menshevik until Lenin converted him. (Whereas Kerensky remained a Social Revolutionary.)
Historical fact.
Every time someone tells me he doesn’t know about Obama, I ask them the same thing - have you heard the man talk?
Obama’s appeal isn’t translated well into sound bites. You need to hear the guy talk for yourself and then judge him.
Most of Obama’s appeal has been very adequately expressed in this thread. He is intelligent, thoughtful, inspiring, confident of his opinions, and is willing to treat voters like adults.
I believe Clinton and Edwards are also very intelligent and thoughtful, but the reason I prefer Obama is that the other two insists on solving problems using a broken system. Clinton’s main argument is that she can play “politics as usual” better than Obama can, forgetting that “politics as usual” is the cause of most of our problems.
Obama refuses to play by the rules of a broken system. He isn’t dumbing down issues and he is offering very thoughtful solutions to our problems. You can see the who he is on his face, while to see the true Hillary or Edwards you can’t go by what they’re telling you.
I remember a reading a quote right on this message board that turned me on to Obama. It was this one:
I remember reading that and thinking. . . Holy shit, I think this dude actually thinks about the issues and their ramifications and considers the perspective of others. I believe that he believes that, it’s not just his “don’t rock the boat” party line. As a member of the apathetic “youth vote”, it was the first time I thought a politician might not be just another talking head. The more I read and the more I saw of him, the more I felt this way. I think he could actually do something useful, maybe even bring the country back together a little and heal the big, ugly rift we’ve made with the rest of the world.
I desperately wanted there to be an honorable man in the White House. I wanted a statesman. I wanted someone who I felt was way smarter than me. Who won’t embarrass the country. I just didn’t think that person existed. I’m a democrat, but I didn’t vote for Gore or Kerry so much as I voted against Bush. I don’t think I’ve ever cast a vote that wasn’t “I suppose this one will do”, until I sent my ballot for Obama in the CA primary. He’s the first person I’ve ever wanted to vote for.
I have no patience for politicians and generally can’t stand politics, but I want to send him money, put a sign on my lawn. . . and I can’t believe I want these things. I can’t believe he’s made me and so many other people like me care.
I think he’s the Real Thing, and we are so badly in need of that at this point in time.
(FWIW, my father, a registered, politically active moderate Republican and a quiet but deep-seated racist, is voting for Obama. “Yeah, I know what I usually say,” he told me, “But even I know a Great Man when I see one.” If he can reach my Dad, maybe there is really hope of reaching across the aisle.)
Will no one admit that they fell just a little special to be able to vote for a black guy??