Barack Obama: The Contender

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Drawing from the Playbook
The truth is, for all his talk about inventing a new kind of politics, Obama has always understood that the old rulebook cannot be completely thrown out in a nomination fight — not if you want to win. It is true that he has told people things they don't want to hear: he has championed merit pay in front of teachers and fuel-efficiency standards before automakers. But Obama also sees political necessity to pander, proposing, for instance, that senior citizens who earn less than $50,000 be exempt from income taxes. That stance could explain how his support among older voters, who make up a disproportionate share of the Iowa electorate, has risen 8 points since July in a Washington Post/ABC poll.

And the avatar of post–baby boom politics must also deal with the fact that the first vote will occur under a byzantine process that requires politicians to perform well under the most retro conditions imaginable. The Iowa caucuses are neighborhood meetings at which voters spend hours arguing with and cajoling one another and organization trumps almost everything else. The actual number of caucusgoers is relatively small — 124,000 turned up four years ago. And they tend to make up their minds late; 2004 exit polls indicated 4 in 10 made their decisions in the last week before the caucuses. What's more, everyone's calculations can be thrown off by a sudden ice storm — or, this time, by the fact that the caucuses are coming on the heels of the holiday season, while colleges are on winter break, and on the same night that a Midwestern team could be playing in the Orange Bowl.

Whatever the drawbacks of this long and brutal campaign season, Obama believes the exercise is a good one for picking a President. "Ultimately, the process reveals aspects of an individual's character and judgment. If you think about past Presidents, probably those two things, along with vision, are the most important aspects of a presidency," he says. "Do you know where you want to take the country? Do you have the judgment to figure out what's important and what's not? Do you have the character to withstand trials and tribulations and to bounce back from setbacks?" In the coming weeks, voters will form their own answers to all those questions.