Barack's Paradox, or Why Barack Obama will win the Democratic nomination

The frontrunner's curse is a not-always-true maxim that applies to everything from the Heisman Trophy to politics. John McCain and Hillary Clinton were the frontrunners for their party's respective presidential nomination entering 2007, and both have had their stride broken by the year's end. Frontrunners are gunned down because of increased scrutiny and inevitable backlash; likeable underdogs are lifted to the top because who doesn't like underdogs?

Political campaigns hinge on timing: Mike Huckabee might win the Republican nomination because he went from underdog to frontrunner without enough time for people to realize he is actually insane, even as McCain is regaining strength as an underdog. The frontrunner's curse is even more pronounced for Democrats because they fancy themselves the party for underdogs (minorities, poor, uninsured, atheists, andys), and Barack Obama sprinted his way to the front, overtaking Clinton with a gust of perfect timing that Einstein would be proud of (relatively speaking). He will stay there, too, because the brilliance of Barack Obama is that even though he is now the frontrunner, the fact that he is black will always make him an underdog. He is the frontrunner and the underdog at the same time! By virtue of the fact that no results show up in a Google search for the phrase, I am officially inventing the term "Barack's Paradox" to describe this contradiction. Barack's Paradox is the most advantageous position you can have as a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.