NEW YORK TIMES
Obama the Celebrity [Greg Pollowitz]
Before Sen. McCain dared to call Barack Obama a celebrity . . .
NY Times July 27, 2008:
Mr. Obama, who was elected to the Senate in 2004, showed discipline in steering clear of fiery partisan rhetoric in Washington, and moved quickly to work with Republicans on an ethics reform package. To a great extent, as a new member, he kept his head down and did not showboat, even though he was something of a celebrity in the Senate. And even before he joined the body, he already understood the importance of awing an audience; his Democratic convention speech in 2004 was a career-making moment for him, and he knew it well beforehand, aides say.
NY Times July 9, 2008:
Yet it was an Obama family rollout last Friday, Malia's 10th birthday. There were sit-down sessions with Parents, People and Essence magazines, as well as the interview with the celebrity-focused ''Access Hollywood.''
NY Times June 26, 2008:
They are discussing whether Mr. Obama’s campaign will provide a plane and staff for Mrs. Clinton as she travels on his behalf. The talks were described by aides on both sides as complicated, but not hostile.
Still, the sheer agenda of discussion items — and the presence of Mr. Barnett, a Washington lawyer who has represented some of the city’s top political and media figures over the years — served as a reminder of what an extraordinarily close competition this was for these two celebrity candidates.
NY Times June 22, 2008:
On the Davie Brown Index, an independent online rating system that was started two years ago to track the marketing power of celebrities, the singing sensation scores 81.31 on a 100-point scale.
The index bases its score on eight metrics, including influence and trendsetting abilities, and is used by corporate marketers to pinpoint desirable boldface names. With that score, Beyoncé is 27th among the more than 1,800 celebrities that the D.B.I. tracks. (The top five are Tom Hanks, Will Smith, Michael Jordan, Morgan Freeman and George Clooney. The presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain are 9th and 25th, respectively.)
NY Times June 5, 2008:
Many residents of Nyangoma-Kogelo are subsistence farmers, and Mr. Obama has come to represent pride and hope for them.
Because of his celebrity, the village has become something of a focal point, with journalists of many stripes putting up at a nearby port, Kisumu.
“I have spent the whole day here in Kisumu talking with journalists,” said Said Obama, an uncle of the senator.
NY Times June 4, 2008:
He has stumbled and fumbled more than once. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton confounded him, pushing him back on his heels, his irritation too apparent. He falls in love with his words and perhaps his celebrity, acknowledging after Texas that he had become too dependent on arena politics and too aloof in smaller settings.
And why not go back to the beginning. NY Times January 5, 2005:
At his first news briefing as a senator, Mr. Thune said he had already reached out to the Democrats' celebrity freshman, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, whose father is Kenyan and who is the first black man elected to the Senate in 25 years.
I believe the phrase for this, as illustrated by the Editors of the NY Times, is that Obama the celebrity has "entered the national lexicon."
08/01 01:35 PM
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