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Grassroots organizations, including Facebook groups formed by dedicated college students, have sprung up across the country in support of his political style. These organizations, and magazines like Newsweek and Time have spoken strongly for and against Barack Obama’s chances in the race.

But the junior Senator has been dragging his feet. He has stated firmly and repeatedly in different interviews (including the Daily Show, perhaps one of the most liberal news sources out there) that he is wary of his “media hype” and how “overexposed” he is. In his “My Plans for 2008” speech published on his website on Jan. 17, Obama said that “running for the Presidency is a profound decision, a decision no one should make on the basis of media hype or personal ambition alone. So before I committed myself and my family to this race, I wanted to make sure that it was right for us, and more importantly, right for the country.”

I think that Barack Obama is right about being exceedingly over-hyped by the media. And his favorite buzzword, “hope,” is wearing a little thin. But at the same time, his reputation for cooperating with those politicians who have different ideologies is very refreshing.

Partisan politics gets nobody anywhere, and it’s about time we get a politician into an important office who won’t see other politicians as the enemy. The sort of backbiting, media-mongering squabbles that plagued the polarizing Bush administration need to end, and quickly.

Problems like global “climate change,” sectarian violence in Iraq, and rampant political euphemisms are becoming more difficult to contain, and a government that wastes energy and money on hateful ad campaigns simply isn’t as equipped as it can be to combat them. To quote Abraham Lincoln, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” I see Obama as the unifying force of moderation and compromise that can bring the great house of our American government back together, so it can present a powerful front to problems worldwide.

As with any politician, popular or otherwise, Barack Obama has his critics. Many of these criticisms stem from deliberate social manipulation and demagoguery, such as the e-mail presented to snopes.com, the urban legend reference website. This e-mail, titled THE ENEMY WITHIN!, sought to spread doubt about Obama’s religious affiliations by calling him a “radical, ideological Muslim.” The racist bigot who wrote this e-mail intended to affiliate Barack Obama with the terrorists in the Middle East that hide under the guise of Islam.

Other criticisms of Barack Obama as a politician are necessarily valid; after all, the man isn’t a saint. Of these criticisms questions Barack Obama’s lack of experience in federal politics. He was sworn in to the United States Senate on Jan. 4, 2005, meaning he has only spent two years in America’s Congress. Some of the critics who cite this as their reason for a lack of faith say that although Obama is a qualified senator, and has undeniable charisma, the role of the presidency is simply too much for one of his tenure.

Yet the 45-year-old senator from Illinois has taken great political strides during his short federal careerčstrides that earn my complete confidence in him as a politician. In 2005, for example, he helped sponsor the Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act authored by John McCain, R-Arizona. More recently, he personally wrote the Iraq War De-Escalation Act of 2007, calling for a “capping” of troop size at January 2007 levels and proposing a redeployment in phases of American troops in Iraq. Calling for such a significant change in American foreign policy speaks to Obama’s experience as a lawmaker and his masterful keynote address at the Democratic convention of 2004 speaks to his grasp of politics as it relates to the people.