One Step Closer

[UPDATED TWICE below]

It's starting to look all but inevitable. This morning Barack Obama moved a little bit more in the direction of running for president. He set up an exploratory committee, which means more than that he's simply thinking about it a bit more closely. Now he can start raising money while he thinks about it a bit more closely. And Evan Bayh's experience notwithstanding, it's virtually certain that this will lead to actual announcement of his campaign within a few weeks (actually, Obama's already promised to make another public announcement one way or another on February 10).

I've expressed my reservations about an Obama candidacy before (more than once, actually), but even I've got to admit that the zeitgeist just seems to be swirling in his direction. While I'm somewhat concerned about his lack of experience, my biggest concern is our lack of experience with him. Obama is an empty vessel, and we're free in our imaginations to fill him with all of our hopes and dreams. There's no reason not to load him up with our expectations, to make him our perfect candidate. The problem, though, is that my hopes and dreams are not the same as your hopes and dreams. My perfect candidate is going to differ from your perfect candidate. I've got no illusions that he's going turn out to be exactly what I want him to be, I have to wonder how much we'll each allow him to stray from that before we start turning away from him, before we look for someone else to be our political savior.

In looking around the political environment, though, Obama probably didn't think he had much choice. The feeling that this is his time is almost becoming palpable. If he hadn't decided to run (and, truth be told, we don't really know he has, yet), I suspect it would've been felt that he missed his chance, and he'd look even more like yesterday's news in another campaign than if he'd quietly closed out his term and run for reelection to the Senate.

As to the charge of inexperience, I saw one of Obama's mentors, Newton Minnow, on the local news tonight, and he pointed out that the person with the most experience currently serving in the Bush administration would be Dick Cheney. I don't know you need a stronger argument than that.

UPDATE--I forgot to put in a link to Obama's video announcement of his exploratory committee, where he explains his thinking in somewhat broad terms.

UPDATE 2--The Beat posted a timely photo from Obama's own Web site of a visit the senator made to Metropolis.