Barack Obama, Politician

DURING FOX NEWS' COVERAGE of last night's Pennsylvania primary, the Keystone State's favorite son and prominent Obama supporter Senator Bob Casey Jr. made an appearance. Like many Obama supporters, Casey didn't shy away from hyperbole when discussing his candidate. Referring to Obama, Casey flatly stated, "No candidate's ever come so far."

Perhaps, if one were inclined to be charitable to Casey, one could forgive his apparent forgetfulness regarding Abraham Lincoln, who merely emerged from a log cabin to save the Union. By any objective measure, Lincoln at the very least "came as far" as Obama.

But you don't have to look back to relatively ancient American history to find candidates who have come as far as Obama. Obama's journey is remarkable, but it's not particularly anomalous. Obama grew up in a middle class household and attended his state's most exclusive boarding school. Those facts don't diminish how far he has come--anyone who comes as close to the presidency as Obama now is has by definition "come far."

But in recent history, other leaders came farther. Bill Clinton, like Obama, grew up in a non-traditional household. Additionally, Clinton had to deal with poverty and an abusive step-father. Ronald Reagan grew up in grinding poverty and without the advantage of a world class education from the time he was out of short pants. In other words, every president of the last generation not named Bush has "come so far" as Barack Obama.

Admittedly, no one has yet accused Bob Casey of being the shrewdest or most thoughtful member of the Senate. But his tiny piece of hyperbole fits in well with the kind of stuff Obama supporters typically sling. In their telling, Obama is something brand new, and the inability of the as-yet-unconverted to acknowledge Obama's uniqueness speaks poorly of them.

Chances are, this enthusiasm engenders a fair amount of hostility from people who have yet to accept Obama as their political savior. Given the fact that late deciding voters in Pennsylvania broke for Hillary Clinton in a big way, there's the distinct possibility that this consistent strain of rhetoric isn't just turning off people who oppose Obama, but also undecided voters.

But there's still a bigger problem with the Obama supporters who have placed him on a pedestal as something completely new. As we near the end of the primary season, it's becoming increasingly apparent that Barack Obama is merely a politician, a fellow who chases votes for a living. And there's nothing new about that.

SEVERAL MONTHS AGO, I dusted off my rolodex from the 1990's and began calling people who had attended law school with Barack Obama. (Because of my prior profession, I had made the acquaintance of dozens of Obama's former classmates.)

The results of my mini survey surprised me. Everyone I spoke with knew Obama. Even more surprisingly, everyone I spoke with adored him. Not a single person had a negative thing to say about him. And yes, there were some conservatives in the sample group.

The uniformly pro-Obama sentiments were surprising. Law schools are full of future lawyers, and needless to say many lawyers are small and petty people. Since Obama did exceptionally well at Harvard Law, graduating magna cum laude and serving as editor-in-chief of the Harvard Law Review, you would have expected his accomplishments to engender some hostility among his classmates. But they didn't.

In the past, I've taken the results of my personal poll as an assurance that Barack Obama is a decent guy. Harvard Law School is a pretty intimate place, and there's no way anyone could fool not only so many people but apparently all the people over a three year period. As this campaign has wore on and Obama has progressively become a less attractive figure, I still take comfort from his former classmates' high regard for him.

But there's another side to such uniform popularity. Remaining in virtually everyone's good graces requires a fair amount of work. It requires a form of day-to-day politicking that most people eschew. People who achieve such popularity have to work at it.

They also have to be not particularly choosy about who they pal around with. They have to be non-judgmental. One thing we've seen in Barack Obama's past associations is a surfeit of non-judgmentalism. Most people would decline to adopt someone like Jeremiah Wright as their crazy uncle. Still more would refuse to have anything to do with an unrepentant terrorist like William Ayers. But Obama apparently never takes a stand with such individuals and, as we've seen, never cuts ties with them. In this way, he's much like the typical politician who feeds on the fondness of others in a way that would be foreign to normal people.