Who Barack Obama is and what he represents is just as important in the US presidential nomination campaign as what he says or what he proposes by way of policy. He has come to embody everything the Democratic party has stood for and pursued for 50 years.

Barack Obama’s candidacy is a movement as much as it is a campaign, with boisterous rallies, many volunteers and over a million small donors. This movement has mobilised many new voters into the democratic process, particularly the young and independents (citizens unaffiliated with either major party). As a result of this enthusiasm, as well as the closeness of the race, turnout in Democratic primaries and caucuses across the nation has reached historic highs.

And yet there are wide differences of opinion over what the Obama candidacy represents. To supporters, he is a fundamentally new force in US politics, who rises above partisanship and tells people to “turn the page” on the political gridlock inside Washington’s Beltway. To opponents within the Democratic party (those supporting the candidacy of rival senator Hillary Clinton), he is nothing but bombast, coupled with youth and inexperience. And to Republican partisans, he is beguiling but not mysterious: an old-fashioned tax-and-spend liberal, scarcely different from those who have come before.

Each of these perspectives has an element of truth. The newness of this man, his freshness and vitality have provided plenty of material for the commentariat. With a father from Kenya and a mother from Kansas, Barack Obama was raised in Hawaii and in Indonesia, where his mother had moved to pursue her research for a doctoral degree in anthropology. (She eventually re-married, providing Barack with an Indonesian stepfather.) He attended college in California (Occidental) and New York (Columbia), then moved to the south side of Chicago to serve as a community organiser before receiving his law degree in Massachusetts (Harvard). Barack Hussein Obama is a useful screen on which the world has projected many themes.

Messenger not architect

He is a messenger but not an architect of the modern Democratic party. Novelties aside, Obama’s candidacy is defined by many now-traditional Democratic themes. From the end (...)