Posted By: Tom Hustler

by Charlotte RaabSat Nov 4, 12:11 PM ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Even before the current battle for control of the US Congress came to its conclusion, a race for the White House has begun and the media made their choice: Barack Obama, the smiling Democratic senator who has held his current job for less than two years.
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A CNN opinion poll released this week revealed that Obama, 45, the only black US senator, was the choice of 17 percent of Democrats, who would like him to be the standard bearer of the party in the 2008 presidential campaign.

He was trailing behind only his senatorial colleague Hillary Clinton, who enjoyed 28-percent support after spending six years in the Senate and amassing an impressive war chest.

But the popularity of the former first lady dropped 10 percentage points in just one month.

It was undoubtedly the effect of a media offensive that accompanied the release of Obama's second book, "The Audacity of Hope."

However, the senator also uttered a short sentence that exploded like a bomb: on October 22, the senator from Chicago announced that he was thinking about a White House run.

Obama, who has been traveling the country for two months to lend support for Democratic candidates, explained that he would not rule out taking part in the presidential campaign, if his candidacy received a positive response.

A few days earlier, conservative columnist David Brooks implored him: "Run Barack, Run," adding that the senator's "style is surely the antidote to the politics of the past several years. It is surely true that a president who brings a deliberative style to the White House will multiply his knowledge, not divide it."

Prominent talk show hostess Oprah Winfrey also said Obama should run when the senator appeared on her show with his wife Michelle.

On the other hand, left-wing columnist Maureen Dowd finds him a little green at his 45 years of age, and indeed maybe too handsome, following his photo spreads in magazines like Vogue for men, Marie Claire and Vanity Fair.

Obama, a lawyer who is often described as a lanky man with a funny name, was born to a Kenyan father and a white mother from Kansas.

He became a presence on the national political scene even before his election to the Senate two years ago.

In August 2004, he conquered the hearts of Democrats by delivering a keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in support of presidential candidate John Kerry.

He said at that time to rousing applause that there was no black, white, or Hispanic America and that there was just one United States of America.

Top Democratic strategists recognized his talent, and the second-ranking Democrat in the Senate, Richard Durbin, has encouraged him over the past several months.

Former president Bill Clinton, whose wife Hillary has so far dominated the unofficial race for the Democratic nomination, recognized, according to a recent article in The New Yorker magazine, Obama's intelligence and other necessary qualities to be president.

But Clinton noted that in 2008 Obama will have spent only four years in Congress and that there was no need for him to enter the race for the presidency too early.

Another expert who might be interested in keeping the Barack candidacy at bay, Republican Vice President Dick Cheney, believes Obama is an "attractive guy".

But he added on Fox television last week, "I think people might want a little more experience than that, given the nature of the times we live in. But certainly, he's an attractive candidate. If he decides to run, he'll be a player on the Democratic side."

Others, however, believe a long career in the Senate could hurt rather than help Obama's presidential chances.

No senator has been elected president since John F. Kennedy in 1960.

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