In January Barack obama, 43, will become the only African American in the U.S. Senate—and just the third in the past 100 years. Although that alone should be ample cause for contemplation, Obama's is really a story about what might be. In the past year, Obama has been compared, in all seriousness, to Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr. and Bill Clinton. Democrats debate whether he should run for President in 2012 or 2016. "No Chicago pol has heard this kind of flattery since an alderman compared Richard J. Daley to Jesus Christ," noted the Chicago Reader. In Washington the test begins. As the only black Senator, Obama will face expectations that will be hard to fulfill—especially if he wants to be a national candidate someday. "My great- est fear for Barack is that he'll be in the background, another black face in the sea of whiteness," says Donna Brazile, a veteran strategist who ran Al Gore's campaign in 2000. For now, she says, "he doesn't have to become the next black leader. He has to become a great Senator from the state of Illinois." Luckily, one of Obama's gifts is that he is meticulously self-aware, and he knows that the frenzy that surrounds him doesn't entirely make sense. Shortly before his victory,, we met at his campaign headquarters in Chicago—sandwiched between his appointments with Charles Barkley and celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz. "What's going on? I'm not entirely sure," he said, looking tired but steady. "I think what people are most hungry for in politics right now is authenticity."
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