Originally Posted by faithful_servant

Here's a very interesting (if a little bit long) article on Sen. Obama.

July 7, 2008 | Perhaps the best key to the Barack Obama phenomenon (as opposed to Obama the man) is a book that never even mentions the Illinois senator: Rob Walker's "Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are." Observing the launch of Red Bull, an energy drink, Walker noted that instead of attempting to assert the brand's identity to a mass market, the manufacturer pursued a strategy of what he calls "murketing," sponsoring low-key events geared to distinct niches; ask any of these groups what Red Bull is and you're likely to hear a different answer. By refusing to define Red Bull, advertisers allowed each slice of its overall market to interpret the beverage for itself. Likewise, the "vagueness" that many flinty political junkies complain of in Obama permits all sorts of disparate people -- progressives, independents, intellectuals, young people, minority advocates, renegade Republicans -- to see the reflection of their own desires in the self-described "skinny kid with a funny name."

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