Back in the Pleistocene era (O.K., 1990), when we’d get all excited that an African-American could become president—of the Harvard Law Review!—a talented young journalist (O.K., me) was told to track down 28-year-old Barack Obama and find out how he had reached such exalted heights. I remember nothing of the interview, and neither, I bet, does the president of the United States. But he told me (it’s there in the V.F. archives) that if he went into politics it should be because “of work I’ve done on the local level, not because I’m some media creation.”

And there—thank you, Barack—was my kicker: “As media creations go, he’d be a pretty good one.”

He has been created and re-created several times since then, not just by the press but by the country, by those who still believe in him, those who’ve been disappointed, and those who want so badly to see him tossed from 1600 Pennsylvania that it hurts their heads to think about a second Obama term.

Yet, now, on the third anniversary of his inauguration, with November 2012 around the corner, it’s down to numbers—unemployment figures, debt negotiations, David Plouffe’s electoral math—and the gusting insanities of the G.O.P. primaries. If there’s to be any romance left in Barack Obama’s story, he’s the one who’ll have to create it.