Can Obama Keep Golden Boy Status?

There's a good observation over at Political Insider. Dan Conley points out that it's one hell of a lot easier to be a frontrunner when you're not running yet. Looking back at earlier presidential golden boys, Conley wonders if Barack Obama might learn the lesson so many before him have learned, "that a candidacy never looks so beautiful and unbeatable than the day before it is announced."

He also sees some of this shiny newness wearing off of Obama:

Can Barack Obama defy this trend? Perhaps, but his introductory video hints at a campaign a little less magnetic and innovative than we were led to expect. It is, quite bluntly, a bore. And if this is the tone Sen. Obama plans to strike over the next year, the odds are excellent that he'll be thinking about the VP nomination or his U.S. Senate re-election 13 months from now.

In filing paperwork for an exploratory committee, Obama has all but announced his intention to run. Frankly, I had my doubts. His lack of experience may turn out to be harmful, although he can always run as an 'outsider.' But it's pretty much a given that to run as an outsider is to run as a reformer and I haven't heard a lot of 'new broom' rhetoric from him so far -- although there are hints of it in the video.

2008 is one helluva long way off, so I guess the best I can say is, "We'll see..."