He’s in, again, or still

I thought Obama was already running for president. But he announced it today. So what was that other announcement he made recently? Oh yes, that he was ‘forming an exploratory committee’ to consider a run, and would announce his decision on February 10. Sen. Hillary Clinton did the same thing, and so many other candidates that the tv news folks and comedians started joking about all the “exploratory committees.” Everyone knows they’re a tease, to be in without yet committing to be in.

But it gets attention and builds drama. For months now, all the rage in politics (well, not all the rage…) has been the Obama candidacy for president. And yet, today it grabbed headlines across the media that Obama was a candidate for president. Most of them were like this MSNBC article.

Three things seemed to be on everyone’s mind here at Barack Obama’s presidential announcement: his White House bid, the symbol of Abraham Lincoln, and the bitter cold…

The cold, however, didn’t appear to stop the 15,000 to 17,000 supporters — per the Obama campaign’s estimate — who had assembled outside the historic Old State Capitol here. Some have referred to Obama as the “rock star” of the Democratic Party. And, perhaps appropriately, the audience participated as if they were at a rock concert, not a political rally.

Indeed, some supporters wore T-shirts declaring, “Are you ready to Barack?” Also, right before the program began, Van Halen’s “Right Now” blared over the loudspeakers. And when Obama took to the podium, the music in the background was U2’s “City of Blinding Lights.”

Those weren’t the only examples of the rock star-like atmosphere in this usually quiet capital city. The campaign credentialed 525 journalists, and nearly a quarter of those were foreign press. What’s more, television crews began setting up at least 4:00 a.m. C.S.T. — six hours before the event was to take place.

Rock star?

Here’s how CNN opened its coverage:

Sen. Barack Obama stood before a cheering crowd in his home state Saturday and announced he will seek the 2008 Democratic nomination for president.

Does CNN ever open a report with the lead that a candidate “stood before a cheering crowd”? 

Invoking the memory of fellow Illinoisan and the 16th president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, the first-term senator addressed thousands packed into the Springfield, Illinois, town square on a chilly day in America’s heartland.

To chants of “Obama! Obama!,” he told the crowd: “It was here, in Springfield, where North, South, East and West come together that I was reminded of the essential decency of the American people — where I came to believe that through this decency, we can build a more hopeful America.”

At least the International Herald Tribune had the honesty to note how well staged the event was.

Senator Barack Obama stood on the steps of the Old State Capitol in this city of Abraham Lincoln on Saturday and, in a grandly choreographed announcement of his plan to seek the presidency, offered himself as the face of a new generation that would bring change to a government hobbled by cynicism, petty corruption and “a smallness of our politics.”

The IHT actually brought up a good point many people have wondered but few have yet raised publicly.

But for all the excitement on display this frigid morning, Obama’s speech also marked the start of a tough new phase in what until now has been a charmed introduction to national politics. Democrats and Obama’s aides said they were girding for questions about his depth of experience in national politics, his command of policy, a past that has gone largely unexamined by rivals and the news media, and a public persona defined more by his biography and charisma than by how he would seek to use the powers of the presidency.

Now, this is getting interesting.

And that examination is only getting started.

Barack Obama’s free ride is ending.

The charismatic Illinois senator has enjoyed a lifetime of hagiography, starting with an 800-word story in The New York Times the day after his election as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review.

Now, Obama’s about to endure a going-over that would make a proctologist blush. Why has he sometimes said his first name is Arabic, and other times Swahili? Why did he make up names in his first book, as the introduction acknowledges? Why did he say two years ago that he would “absolutely” serve out his Senate term, which ends in 2011, and that the idea of him running for president this cycle was “silly” and hype “that’s been a little overblown”?

In interviews, strategists in both parties pointed to four big vulnerabilities: Obama’s inexperience, the thinness of his policy record, his frank liberalism in a time when the party needs centrist voters and the wealth of targets that are provided by the personal recollections in his first book, from past drug use to conversations that cannot be documented.

Beginning with his announcement for president on Saturday, the long knives will be out for Obama from three directions: Reporters, perpetuating the boom and bust cycle of a ravenous media culture, will try to make up for fawning coverage of the past. Democratic rivals want to get him out of the way. And some top Republicans think the party would have a better chance with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., as the nominee, since she is a known quantity while Obama can try to define himself as anything he wants.

And then there are the voters, who want to know what Obama’s principles are on important issues, and how he has voted in the past. No amount of choreography can dance around that.