Barack Obama has created a persona that's equal parts everyman and superstar. Young voters start political phenom

WASHINGTON - For a generation that's come of age with shows like "American Idol," the idea of creating a countrywide political phenom from the ground up is right up their alley. And this year's presidential election is giving them that chance.

The days of authoritative, hierarchical campaigns are waning. Now reaching the masses, particularly the younger masses, means putting the power in their hands.


Thousands of messages flooded Meredith Segal's inbox in 2006, responding to her Facebook petition to get Barack Obama into the presidential race. "I was absolutely amazed. What I was most amazed about was the number of messages I got from young people saying, `I want to do more.'"

"This campaign has been a campaign about regular Americans getting involved," said Segal, 22, a senior at Bowdoin College in Maine. "This is a very real movement."

Campaign spokespeople are no longer the only ones delivering the candidate's message, said Pete Snyder, CEO of New Media Strategies, which specializes in online and word-of-mouth marketing. "It's not one press secretary, it's hundreds or tens of thousands if you look at all the comments out there on blogs. It's a much more collaborative way to run a campaign."

It's collaborative in a way that looks increasingly familiar in today's pop culture environment of accessible and attainable celebrity. Much of the social discourse these days is rooted in flashy competitions where voters decide who stays or goes on reality shows. So it's no surprise that the race for the presidency, one of the most high-profile competitions of all, has adopted characteristics of a televised popularity contest.

It's a game young people know how to play.

"There is a growing participatory element to contemporary popular culture. More and more, people feel like they have a role in creating celebrities, stars and leads," said Bob Lichter, president of the Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University. "People feel they have more of a right to create candidates instead of just vote for them."

Obama, more than any other candidate, has reaped the benefits.

He has drawn a lot of momentum from the buzz generated by young people, whose cultural upbringing has been in a highly fragmented media world of online social networking.

"A lot of politicians are smart," said Helen Duan, 23, a student at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. "But I don't think they motivate us in the same ways as Obama does."

Obama's success has validated the larger cultural decentralization, which replaces the old, vertical, expert-to-layman approach with horizontal, peer-to-peer interactivity.

"There's a lot of uplift that's connected to this, a lot of excitement in terms of what can happen in the future and what we're a part of, what our generation is a part of now," said Shaka Dickerson, 22, a recent Columbia University graduate.

And young people have become increasingly accustomed to holding that new media celebrity-making power in their hands.

"If you literally vote someone into celebrity, it's like voting them into office. People have a stronger sense of their right to decide who becomes important," Lichter said. "We're living in a world of 'celebrities are us.'"

The path to success, Lichter said, means finding the balance between approachability and star power. The current pop culture landscape demands complete access and distant idolatry at the same time, and it's a tightrope walk for celebrities and politicians alike.

But Obama may have come closest to finding the sweet spot.

He's created a persona that's equal parts everyman and superstar. And, throughout this process, young people have been right there beside him – molding a candidate out of someone who seems eager to accept their help.

"The truth is, it was young people who drew (Obama) into this race," David Axelrod, top adviser to Obama, told a student journalist in an interview that appeared on the video blog MeetthePrez.net. "Groups started spontaneously to urge him to run on Facebook and elsewhere, and I think he was moved by that."

"Definitely this generation is very eager to become involved," said Segal, who launched the Obama petition in Facebook and, in true bottom-up fashion, has soared from organizing such petitions to serving as executive director of Students for Obama, a volunteer arm of the official campaign. Like so many others, she knows what she's looking for.

"I think it would be wonderful if we could create a system in which being honest and being down to earth could make you a rock star in Washington," she said.