The Politics of Attraction

One of the many types of comments that has earned a Hardy Eye-RollTM from me, ever since the fateful loss of the White House by Republicans this past election, is that many on the Left now seem to almost adore President Obama. Comments indicating that retail displays of his books and books about him are "shrines" to him are not uncommon. This is not to say that some of these comments do not come from a sore losing with many on the political right admitting freely that the very soul of the Republican party is up for a new definition, and for grabs, for that matter. Still, I can't help but notice that part of the coverage that he gets is a bit more positive in the media.
Is this due perhaps to his relative youthfulness? While past presidents have often engaged in sports, many of those sports are golf, horseback riding, and the like. These sports certainly require a good deal of skill, but neither of them are quite as rigorous as basketball, which President Obama still makes time to play despite his new schedule. Perhaps this has helped him maintain his appearance? I am fairly young, but I cannot recall any president before him being pictured shirtless on the cover of a magazine as I have seen of President Obama. In fact, the last time the nation seemed to be this excited about a president whom they felt showed a youthful exhuberance was President Kennedy.
There are also many women, and a few men, who cannot help but remark to me that, all politics aside, they do find him attractive. I noticed this trend for some time and said nothing, until I noticed an ad for a popular gay dating web site pushing for unpaid members to purchase a paid membership.

The ad shows an African American gentleman who bears a younger, but very real resemblance to the current president. They even go so far as to refer to their paid membership as a "stimulus package" referencing not only the president's economic agenda, but presumably also to the steamy dates one is supposed to acquire via said paid membership.

I do not believe that this is the only reason that people voted for Mr. Obama for the office of President, but after hearing comments from many people who admire men, and the aforementioned ad, I cannot discount the possibility that this has played a role. I do not know precisely what to say about the subject. All I know is that all I could think to myself when I saw this ad was, "I knew I wasn't the only one."