“We don’t know much about him. He’s almost like a spirit. People like the feeling they get when they’re in his presence.”

Sounds like Jesus,doesn’t it?

Actually, Democratic media strategist Dan Payne is talking about Barack Obama in a CBS News interview.

Payne goes on to say people “couldn’t tell you three things he’s done or stands for. We’re at that weird stage where candidates get so magnetic that it almost doesn’t matter what they say.”

There is a name for this sort of thing. It’s called a cult of personality and many nations,through the years, developed it–Russia,Germany,Italy, Spain,China, Argentina,Chile to name but a few.

This is not to suggest that Obama will be the next Stalin,or Franco, or Mao, or Hitler. But, if we are going to drink the Kool Aid Obama and his backers are serving up, we should at least know what’s in it or we run the risk of downing a potentially toxic brew.

George W. Bush asked us to trust him. In exchange for our trust we got a mind numbing war in Iraq, partial dismantling of the Bill of Rights, and a foreign policy that says it is okay to invade another country simply because we think it poses some future risk.

Obama, in many ways, is a cipher. And, as such, he allows us to superimpose on him what we want him to be. That should not be good enough to get a man or woman elected President of the United States.

Some young people swoon when they gaze upon Obama–One New York Times reporter yesterday said there is almost something sexual about it. There is nothing wrong, of course, with a political candidate with sex appeal–Kennedy had it, Clinton (Bill) had it, even the over six foot tall George Washington had it.

But, there should be something more than that to get the crowds all worked up. They should be worked up about his ideas, his programs, his blueprint for the future. They should not be worked up because he is a “spirit.”