Obama is a celebrity. People are reacting to him "as if" he were a real person in their lives. With atomization of social living, the decline even of the nuclear family and the isolation on the job and in society there is a tremendous psychological hunger for personal contact. People want someone in their lives.
People being creative take on a celebrity as the center of their day to day life. Some know more about their celebrity than anyone in their real life. The public to Diana's death and the consequent mourning exemplify this
Further, people want to believe in something. As all other beliefs are tossed under the bus they look for that certain someone to lead them and the world out of the dullness and difficulty of everyday life. This is the secret of despots. They are a tremendous solace and support for the disaffected. The commitment to him is "passionate" in the sense it lacks empirical foundation; hence, it is more powerful than ideology. He is dangerous since those committed will not look at him in a critical way and he will be able to coast on emotion rather than submit to reason. The weaker the culture, the more likely we are to find celebrities to fill in the voids. The best celebrities urge egalitarianism for their followers and worship of themselves for themselves. You can see this every day.
After I wrote my previous post I watched Fox News prior to attending a Christmas concert. M Eliason and M Kondracke were gushing in there assessment of Obama. Eliason more than Kondracke.
It was almost as if they had waited and waited for his appearance. In thinking about it, I am sure they have. For decades the Democrats have relied on the African-American vote yet they have seldom awarded them a Governorship or a US Senatorship. I suspect like many elitists they secretly are embarrassed or dislike the average AA who looks and sounds quite different from the White overclass.
Their guilt over this is now assuaged. They have a dark skinned man who looks like he might be an AA but he is not only just half Black and he is not of the usual AA tradition and has no hint of an Ebonics problem. Quite the contrary he is a Harvard attender with an upper class mother.
Now they can vote for a Black man (actually dark man) with joy and thus disprove to themselves and others that they are in the least bit racist or inclined to see themselves as somewhat superior to the working class AA.
Their joy is almost palpable. Obama to his credit is enjoying his celebrity status and seems perplexed how it all occurred. Eventually, he will figure it out. In the meantime all he has to say is inanities or vague, high sounding talk and the liberals swoon.
Since the overwhelming majority of posters on this lack any racial guilt they are puzzled as to why his celebrity is so explosive. The problem for them is the reverse of the White, overclass Democrat.
The big danger is Obama is being given a free ticket he can use to go anywhere with no requirement he give his destination in advance. Dangerous! If he is, deep down, a ruthless egalitarian he will damage this country more than any Clinton ever could. If they have wanted a democratic despot they have a potential candidate whose skin color will attenuate any and all issues raised by conservatives.
It will be interesting to see if the average African American will be as enamored of Obama as the average White Liberal with a postgraduate degree or equivalent.