Barack to Roll?

From Political Wire...

Is Obama Ready to Run?

Jonathan Alter says a 2008
presidential campaign bid by Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL)
might not be as far-fetched as some think. In fact,
while there are plenty of personal reasons not to run
-- he has young children -- his advisers think there
are no political reasons not to make the race.

The Obama campaign right now was described to me as a
concept rather than a plan. The concept is that Obama
is a positive, aspirational figure who appeals to a
yearning in the country for a unifying, almost
spiritual vision that moves beyond the tired arguments
of left versus right. At a more prosaic level, the
concept would call for a massive
black-voter-registration campaign in the South while
continuing his crossover appeal to moderate white
voters. On the Iraq war, the critical issue for
Democratic primary voters, Obama is perfectly
positioned. He opposed the war from the beginning,
with an articulate denunciation of the Bush policy as
a distraction from the war on terror. In other words,
he was four years ahead of the curve. By contrast,
John Edwards is in the uncomfortable position of
having said he was wrong to support the war. Hillary
Clinton is even worse off. She has yet to acknowledge
the obvious: that if she knew then what she knows now,
she would have voted against the war instead of for
it. If both Obama and Clinton run, he would quickly
best her on this issue, which all of her early money
would do little to counteract.