I keep seeing Obama in the headlines and there is story after story that questions the established ways of thinking about politics and choosing our leaders.
First there were articles and stories about whether or not experience really matters. I remember reading an article that detailed why experience can actually be a bad thing. That was back when it was still Obama vs Clinton.
Now I am seeing headlines online and elsewhere that ask if military service really matters. The real question is does anything really matter to the media other than the interest that a candidate can generate which of course generates increased revenues for all the media outlets?
Obama is a media darling because he is new, someone unknown, and exciting. He's like a pop star and he sells media whether it is news magazines, newspapers, TV time, or clicks to webpages. Of course Obama is on the cover of Time twice... that's how you sell more Time magazines right now. McCain and Clinton have both been around so long that there really isn't much new and interesting we can hope to learn from picking up a magazine with either of them on the cover.
Obama is a different story. Obama is sensational and everyone knows that they don't know enough about Obama. Even if you do not care about Obama at all and are 100% for McCain there are enough people out there that want to be objective and realize that they are pretty ignorant about Obama. They want to know about him before the polls so they can decide which way to swing their vote. There are also all the people comepletely crazy about Obama or inspired by him or whatever. In between those two extremes you have a lot of additional media consumption.
Obama is the choice for media outlets because he will continue to drive up new media consumption in the short term, and he is more likely than Hilary or McCain to continue to be interesting for the next four to eight years. Besides, think of how much easier the job will be when you are getting paid per word or per minute. In the first years you can have introdcutory comments like, "the first black president of the United States of America" or "one of the least experienced new Presidents we've seen in a long time" The whole thing just becomes too easy for everyone involved in the media.