I know, it should be about policy, but....

I found this brief Salon article on Obama interesting - in part because its working theory would explain a whole lot of his appeal to me - particularly these two notions:

"In political terms, this campaign will test whether the Democratic voters will pick a nominee who waxes cool while his major rivals (certainly John Edwards and Hillary Clinton, by marriage and learned experience) burn hot."

"So here is a working theory, subject to many modifications as the campaign unfolds: Barack Obama is simultaneously both aware of the power of cheap rhetoric and easy emotion -- and intellectually contemptuous of it. He is a candidate in quiet rebellion against the banalities that too often govern political discourse."

I like people who wax cool - even more particularly do I like of the coolness in positions of authority. For example, I loathe emotional preaching in church - which tends to read to me as pandering to the lowest human emotions in order to disguise the fact that the speaker is cowering in the corner, terrified of the human intellect (and, yes, I say this fresh off a viewing of Jesus Camp - which, damn, shows an even more wack sort of fundie church camp than the one I attended in my youth). Hmm - perhaps not surprisingly I also loathe a 'hot' style in politics.