As she watched a stream of A-list Hollywood actors and movie moguls crowd into the elegant ballroom of the Beverly Hilton Hotel to mingle with Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama this week, powerhouse blogger and author Arianna Huffington noted that many in the room were uneasy about being there.

"It's like being married, and suddenly you fall in love. You're a good person, and a loyal person ... you have a history with the Clintons,'' she said. "And you feel like you're cheating.''

If some Democrats have cheating on their minds, it coincides with the rise of Obama, the junior senator from Illinois, who has attracted big crowds and evidenced that elusive quality of political charisma, "something you cannot manufacture,'' Huffington said. "It is priceless -- and we haven't seen it for a long time.''

And that has posed trouble for the old love: Hillary Rodham Clinton, the New York senator, front-runner for the Democratic nomination in 2008 and the wife of former President Bill Clinton.

Thousands Gather To Hear Barack Obama

(CBS 42) AUSTIN Moods were high, despite the long lines to get into Auditorium Shores to catch a glimpse of the man who wants to win the presidency in 2008.Some read the newspaper to pass the time, others just sat down on the pavement.When the gates opened, people flooded inside--clamoring to get to the front of the stage.The crowd cheered and yelled when Senator Barack Obama took the stage.People say Obama has what it takes to win the White House and make history.We are just ready for change, and he's got hope, hes got charisma, he is talking the talk and he's ready to do the walk, Sammy Soto said.He has a chance and hopefully he can carry Texas, Nicole Taylor said. Hopefully when it comes time for election day, he can carry us. John Kerry won Travis County in 2004. Al Gore won it in 2000.

The candidacy of Obama is a good sign for America

Go back four decades or so in American history, and tell someone that in the early years of the 21st century a black man would be running for president with a realistic chance of winning, and we all know what the likely reaction would be, right?
There would be disbelief, for starters, and if you got past that, there would be astonishment, because a dark skin would ruin your prospects for a public career in most parts of the country back then, and, in some parts, might even keep you out of the voting booth.
That was hardly the worst of it, but then came massive, often inspired protest, court rulings requiring equal rights, passage of momentous legislation in Congress and endless soul-searching by millions upon millions.
A nation mired in prejudice — not just in the South but nationwide — began to rise out of that miserable muck, not all the way, obviously, but enough of the way that first one impossibility and then another became possible and often became fact until finally we get to Barack Obama and the very real possibility of his being elected president.

Obama base could be elusive

Sen. Barack Obama may loom as history's strongest African-American candidate for president, but a new Goldhaber Research Associates poll shows him far from claiming a solid base among Buffalo's black voters.

The new poll shows Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton leading Obama, 39 percent to 19 percent, among registered Democratic voters in the City of Buffalo. But in a test of strength in his own African-American base, Obama scores 27 percent to Clinton's 28 percent - a statistical tie.

Combined with the fact that 37 percent of blacks have yet to identify a favorite presidential candidate, pollster Gerald M. Goldhaber concludes that the Illinois Democrat begins his campaign without a natural core of support.

"Initially, Obama is not doing as well as he needs to do among black voters," Goldhaber said, noting that serious black politicians in Buffalo have traditionally attracted solid black support.

Wilder praises Obama strategy

RICHMOND -- Richmond Mayor L. Douglas Wilder says Sen. Barack Obama's strategy of relying less on the black leaders of the civil rights era and more on a message of unity gives him the best chance of becoming the first Democrat in 44 years to win the state's electoral votes in a presidential election.
"The civil rights movement was over 50-something years ago," Mr. Wilder, a Democrat and the country's first elected black governor, told The Washington Times. "Many people know nothing of it other than a recitation [during Black History] month. People are tired of that. They want to see more relatively.
"The worst mistake one can make, in my judgment, is to try to tailor a message to a group and to say: 'I am the person for your group.' He should be the person for the American people," he said.