Testing the Waters, Obama Tests His Own Limits

On a winter afternoon two years ago, Senator Barack Obama took his oath of office and strolled across the Capitol grounds hand-in-hand with his wife and two daughters. At the time, a question from his 6-year-old sounded precocious. Now, it seems prescient.

“Are you going to try to be president?” Malia Obama asked her father, giggling as a television camera captured the moment. “Shouldn’t you be the vice president first?”

Her innocent musings go straight to a threshold issue Mr. Obama faces as he edges closer to entering the presidential race: his limited experience in national politics.

But they only hint at a complex matrix of questions swirling around his prospective candidacy: Is he simply a first-term liberal Democrat long on charisma who is enjoying a brief moment of fame? Is he, as some of his more enthusiastic fans seem to feel, the post-partisan, post-racial, post-baby boom embodiment of a new brand of politics? Does he have the drive and discipline to survive a wide-open presidential campaign?


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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/24/washington/24obama.html?hp&ex=1166936400&en=4b4a6508f0f3e810&ei=5094&partner=homepage