The Next Prez?

Barack Obama formally declared his candidacy for president today, and his entire speech can be read here. Yes, it's generic at points, but that's the nature of speeches like this one. And yes, his hands-on experience is limited, but it's difficult to imagine anyone swaying me from him at this point. (That doesn't mean it won't happen.) Presidential leadership, as we've painfully seen over the past six years, is at least as much about the big abstract things as the small specific ones. It's time to elect someone who's strong in the gestural ways, and to me, Obama has everyone else beat on that score.

And check him out with Conan last year, where he suggests, at the end of the interview, an Obama-O'Brien ticket. Now, that I would vote for, guaranteed: