Barack Obama: The Mania and the Mirage

“The Black aspect of Obama-mania is as caught up in historical contradictions as is the white side of the phenomenon.”

“Mirage” is the best metaphor for Barack Obama. He shimmers on the horizon, a promise of…something. But as one draws closer, Obama dissipates into nothingness – which is his purpose.

Like a mirage, Obama floats as an illusion in the political intersections between hot and cool air. It is the place he seeks: the deliberately chosen – yet ever-shifting – layer between other forces that are themselves constantly moving across the landscape. As the Illinois Senator this weekend announced his intention to create a presidential “exploratory committee,” corporate pundits pegged him as nestled in the Democratic niche between Hillary Clinton, to his right – based her relatively “hot” air on Iraq – and the much cooler, if not frigid, temperatures at the base of the party. That’s Obama’s intermediary comfort zone – a place of ever-interpretable impressions.