Seven years ago, Barack Obama was reeling from an unsuccessful bid for the U.S. House of Representatives. Now, Obama is steeling himself for a long campaign for president as one of the democratic front-runners. Transforming from failure to front-runner in seven years is an impressive feat for a man who is younger than both of my parents. But Obama has a number of hurdles to leap on his way to the White House. Most troublesome of these hurdles may not be the fact that he is just as black as he is white, but that Hillary Clinton wants to be president just as much as he does. And Bill Clinton wants her to be president just as much as she does. That especially does not bode well for Obama. There is no doubt Obama's ethnicity will play a significant role throughout his campaign — it already has. However, Obama's black father played a rather small part in his life and Obama spent his childhood in Hawaii and Jakarta, Indonesia. Obama was brought up by a white mother, an Indonesian father, and white grandparents. While he is black, he does not exude the civil right activist aura black presidential hopefuls like Al Sharpton and Rev. Jesse Jackson did. In short, white Americans do not see him as someone who is just looking out for black Americans — a stigma Jackson and Sharpton could never overcome — and black Americans appreciate him as someone to whom they can relate. That equates to big gains in swing states with large black populations like Virginia. Obama's ethnicity will not be much of a handicap like it was for Sharpton and Jackson but more of a selling point like it could have been for Colin Powell. Assuming Americans can look past Obama's glaring lack of experience, it may be that there is only one thing in the way of Obama's nomination to his party's ticket. Or rather, two people: the Clintons. No doubt Hillary's campaign will try to invoke the unabashed democratic glory of Bill's enchanted eight years in the White House. Hillary will not mind if many voters see a Clinton presidency as a sort of third term for Bill. During the primaries, Hillary just has to convince other Democrats that she is the best Democrat for the job. And who better to convince Democrats of anything than quintessential Democrat Bill Clinton? Imagine having Bill Clinton campaigning for you full time in the primaries. Many democratic White House hopefuls would kill an intern or two for such a thing. Hillary just has to be his wife. The stakes are high. After two terms of Bush, and as the mid-term elections clearly showed, Americans are not in a Republican mood and may remain so for the next two years. As it stands, the Democratic primaries may decide the next president of the United States of America. Perhaps it is fitting, then, that it is Barack Obama who is facing the formidable Clintons. Obama has evinced likeability and charisma that Clinton simply cannot match. Obama is the kind of guy you want delivering the keynote speech at your party's convention. Conversely, Hillary's on-screen personality is like a cross between Lane Kiffin of the Oakland Raiders and a bag of tree bark. If you don't know who Lane Kiffin is, rest assured he is only slightly more exciting to listen to than a bag of tree bark (unless you're Randy Moss). Barely out of the Illinois Senate, Obama is hoping Americans will overlook his lack of a record. Hillary is hoping she can get people to forget hers. As the most powerful and intelligent first lady in American presidential history, she was also the most unlikable — critics question whether she actually did anything to help her state during her years in the Senate. She also suffers from the stigma of Bill's Oval Office indiscretions and all the convoluted implications they carry. She also went from being a Cubs fan to a Yankees fan a bit too soon after her successful bid for the U.S. Senate in New York. A lot of people just don't like Hillary Clinton; they may not have a lot of reasons, and they may not be able to explain why, but, boy, they just cannot stand her. Obama is just the opposite: There really isn't a real reason to be so incredibly pleased and excited with Obama — Americans just are. It's going to be that kind of incredible "electability" and likeability that Obama will need to overcome the prodigious war chest of Hillary Clinton and the legacy of Bill Clinton. Gerald Cox ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in economics and Middle Eastern studies.