In this week's cover story, Newsweek calls Obama "An icon of hope". They say "he won't 'kneecap' his foes. But Obama knows what it takes, and how to win."
There's a great picture of an exhausted Barack and Michelle collapsed on the sofa in their bus and Barack talks about how he feels the night before the caucus.
"I feel calm," he answered. Calm? Not nervous about the results, or plain exhausted after 10 months on the road? "No. Because this is the campaign I always wanted to run. If it doesn't work, it's not because of the organization we built or the respectful tone that we set."
It goes into detail about how adamant Barack was and is that his campaign would have a 'respectful tone' and how he sometimes had to fight with his campaign people to maintain that attitude, an attitude that we saw even tonight in the debate when, no matter how he was disparaged, he took the high road and talked only about his own lofty ideals.
"He always tries to answer the question," says one senior aide, who declined to be named when talking about internal strategy. "He doesn't see the question like the others do, as an opportunity to talk about what he wants."
I love this quote from a staffer which, I think, explains succinctly why Barack doesn't always shine in the debates. He's not on an ego trip, not on a pre-ordained path to the white house. He sincerely is trying to convey to the audience his feelings about what he can do for the country.
They also talk about what an asset the bright and beautiful Michelle is to the campaign.
it doesn't hurt that Obama, tall and handsome and blessed with a weighty baritone, knows how to bring along a crowd while seeming to stay slightly above it. It also doesn't hurt that he is married to Michelle Obama, a dynamic, ambitious Princeton and Harvard Law grad who is her husband's intellectual equal, and often a better pitch-person than the candidate himself. On the stump, she is direct and sometimes takes up subjects Obama avoids, especially issues of race.
What a treat it is going to be to have a president of such moral timbre running the country for the next eight years. It's a long article and I could cut and paste dozens of quotes that reinforce the reasons for my strong support of him, but I'll leave it for you to read and enjoy on your own.