Nato writes in a comment thread:

In Obama I see a man who seems to leave his attempts to balance between epistemic humility and the need for action out in the open. That is to say, his subtlety does not appear to just be an attempt to remain a cipher until it's clear which way the political winds blow.

Perhaps I am projecting here, but I will say that onto no other recent candidates was I able to project such positive interpretations as these. (my italics)

Ya think? From Obama's book, via Brothers Judd:

"I am new enough on the national political scene," [Obama] writes in the book's prologue, "to serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views."

But Americans will figure out that they're just projecting before they put this suave neophyte into the White House.