The Calm Of Obama

I've been amazed by it for over a year now, because I have no ounce of it in myself. But then I like my political leaders temperamentally conservative, so I can be as radical as I like and no harm gets done. Obama's little secret is that he isn't that cool. He's just a nerd with natural Xanax in his blood. Joe Klein notices the same thing:

Part of Obama's steadiness is born of necessity: An angry, or flashy, black man isn't going to be elected President. But I've also gotten the sense, in the times I've interviewed and chatted with him, that calm is Obama's natural default position. He is friendly, informal, accessible...and a mystery, hard to get to know. He doesn't give away much, doesn't unlike Bill Clinton have that desperate need to make you like him. His brilliant, at times excessive, oratory is an outlier the only over-the-top, Technicolor quality he has.

There has been no grand cathartic moment for him in this campaign, but rather a steady accretion of trust, a growing public sense that he knows what he's talking about and isn't going to get crazy on us. His demeanor has rendered foolish all the rumors about his alleged radicalism. This guy is the furthest thing imaginable from an extremist; McCain, by his own admission, is the bomb-thrower in this race.