Can Obama Overcome the Urkel Effect?

To find out how Obama can save himself before it's too late, I consulted the reigning geek of our time, John Hodgman, who plays PC in the Apple ads and wrote a new book called More Information Than You Require. Hodgman thinks that while the Urkel effect hurt Al Gore and John Kerry, America's lack of desire to drink even a malty Belgian beer with Obama will actually help him. "After eight years of jocklike bluster, Obama's technician's calm seems extra-attractive," says Hodgman, who believes that jocks vs. geeks has replaced red vs. blue as the reigning cultural conflict of the day. But jockdom, he says, is on the wane. "The world is now driven by knowledge economies. China and India and Dubai do not make Big Bang--theory sitcoms marginalizing their geeks and engineers--unless they actually do, in which case, awesome!"

Maybe Hodgman is right. Maybe Obama won't fall victim to the Urkel effect. Maybe, just as Seth Rogen has replaced Harrison Ford as a romantic-movie lead, our comic-book-loving, viral-video-sharing culture is replacing the blow-dried Mitt Romneys with the Jew-froed Al Frankens. Of course, it's also possible that while our society is ready to accept a black President, it still clings to a treasured stereotype: that all black people are cool and all nerds are white.

Pictures of Obama's campaign behind the scenes
Pictures of the campaign through Obama's eyes