Because inexperience is the new experience, and experience is the new herpes

As Barack Obama picks up momentum in the race for the Democratic nomination, the media seems to be reacting to his success with kid gloves instead of the mallets they're using on Hillary Clinton. The rise of the Obama Fan Club is a pretty strange situation -- in straight news coverage and with pundits on both sides of the aisle. Frontrunners are generally stampeded by the opposing party -- think Hillary earlier in the season, Bush, Kerry, etc.

Just passing along some interesting takes on it...

From a Howard Kurtz story in the Washington Post:

The media overall are being swept up by a wave of Obamamania, in which normally hard-bitten journalists watch the orator in action and come away dazzled by his gifts. A New York Times piece Saturday compared the Illinois senator to JFK and Martin Luther King in the same paragraph. A Newsweek cover story out yesterday gushed 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." The journalistic scrutiny usually visited on instant front-runners has been replaced by something akin to a standing ovation.

From a Gloria Steinem op-ed in the New York Times:

... what worries me is that he is seen as unifying by his race while she is seen as divisive by her sex.

What worries me is that she is accused of “playing the gender card” when citing the old boys’ club, while he is seen as unifying by citing civil rights confrontations.

What worries me is that male Iowa voters were seen as gender-free when supporting their own, while female voters were seen as biased if they did and disloyal if they didn’t.

What worries me is that reporters ignore Mr. Obama’s dependence on the old — for instance, the frequent campaign comparisons to John F. Kennedy — while not challenging the slander that her progressive policies are part of the Washington status quo.

What worries me is that some women, perhaps especially younger ones, hope to deny or escape the sexual caste system; thus Iowa women over 50 and 60, who disproportionately supported Senator Clinton, proved once again that women are the one group that grows more radical with age.

Anyway, here's to New Hampshire voters being smarter than Iowa caucusers... in both parties.