Orland Evangelical Free Church | New York Times Readers and Obama

The presidential cycle has launched in earnest over a year before the Iowa caucuses. After Democratic victories last November, the buzz was not about Hilary Clinton but Barack Obama, the senator Illinois sent to Washington just two years ago. His entry into the race for the Democratic nomination sent other hopefuls like John Edwards and Tom Vilsack into a frenzy. The question is, who can stop Clinton?

One can't overstate the passion that attached to Obama from his first appearance on the national stage, giving an address to the Democratic convention in 2004. He combines the historic possibility of being our first black president with the charisma of another young liberal mesmerizer, John F. Kennedy. To see him is to love him.

In this context, a little profile of Obama launched onto the Times most e-mailed list last weekend. "In Law School, Obama Found Political Voice" by Jodi Kantor is nothing extraordinary as political reporting goes. There's no spectacular scoop. One can't imagine a similar article about Joe Biden's school years generating any excitement, nor one about Edwards's, for that matter. Yet readers seized on this piece.

One reason is the parallel between Obama at Harvard Law in 1990 and Obama now. He was the first black president of the Harvard Law Review. That was some achievement, placing him at the center of the most elite circle in one of the nation's most elite graduate schools. He was breathing the air on top of Olympus, and readers are tantalized that he may do so again.

Another reason is the reiteration of Obama's progressive bona fides. Harvard Law marks him as first-class. Being president of the Review marks him as scholarly and writerly - attributes that add depth to his celebrity. Then there's his "well-inked passport", which marks him as broad, a man whose experience spans multiple cultures. And by the time he arrived at Harvard, he already had "years of community organizing experience in Chicago", marking him as rooted.

But I suspect the biggest reason for the excitement around this piece was the dramatization of Obama's reconciling personality.

The Review was a snakepit. Said fellow student Bradford Berenson, "I have worked in the Supreme Court and the White House and I never saw politics as bitter as at Harvard Law Review in the early ‘90s."

One of Obama's mentors at Harvard, Charles Ogletree, comments: "He can enter your space and organize your thoughts without necessarily revealing his own concerns and conflicts." Sounds like psycho-babble the way he puts it, but the skill is rare.

Kantor writes Obama "proved deft at navigating an institution scorched with ideological battles, many of which revolved around race. He developed a leadership style based more on furthering consensus than on imposing his own ideas."

Obama ran for Review president "saying he might be uniquely able to heal the review's partisan divisions." Conservatives among the editors voted for him - their candidates already defeated -because they felt "he would give us a fair shake." He had a "seemingly limitless appetite for hearing the opinions of others, no matter how redundant or extreme." Even when Obama spoke passionately on racial issues, he did so "in a way that white classmates say made them feel reassured rather than defensive."

The danger of being a healer is ambiguity. "People had a way of hearing what they wanted in Obama's words."

All this tolls deep with progressive hopes. Bill Clinton in 1992 was just this kind of candidate: a healer, a positive force, non-ideological. He was listener. The press was infatuated with his penchant for governing by seminar.

There is a palpable yearning in this bitter time for unity. Between the Bush-haters and the Bush-lovers is a vast proportion of citizens who are grieved at our culture's stridency. Most of them might pass for ideological liberals but consider themselves mainstream.

All of which raises the question: does it serve the gospel's advancement to present ourselves to the nation as an interest group?