From the emailed Evans-Novak Political Report:
In a remarkably short span of time, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) has pushed aside former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) as the principal challenger of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.). A long hard road is ahead for Obama, but he is clearly more than a media phenomenon.
That begs the question: despite his protestations, will another challenger be former Vice President Al Gore? But remember: other campaigns in other years have had media-darling candidates that flamed out in the end. The problem with applying that analysis here: Obama’s book has been selling well and he is wowing crowds on the hustings.
Will it come down to experience? If he’s wowing the crowds, wowing the media and getting votes in early primaries he could be formidable, indeed. But how would he hold up to a predicatable onslaight of negative ads if he gets the nomination? Is he pepared for that? Stay tuned……..
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.