The real reason Obama has a chance is not anything he did in life. It's skin color. If he wins, he'll be the first Afirmative Action President ever, and I hope the last.
Unfortunately, there is a bad precedent here.
Although US blacks like to assert that the ancient Egyptians were black, all of the Egyptian kings and queens were (of all things) Egyptian - except for the last one. For whatever reason (ancient affirmative action?), the last dynastic ruler of ancient Egypt was a Nubian. He was black. And he presided over the end of the Egyptian empire.
Scary.