Obama can be summed up for most voters by the recurring Monty Python segue:
"AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT!"
Obama is not a typical anything, but he is obviously an American with a good deal of charisma. I can attest to this personally, as he came to speak at my university on behalf of Democratic candidates in the past election. No one was unimpressed, including me. The faculty and student body is more varied than you will find at any small university, with over 50 nationalities among the student body and almost as many on the faculty: Chinese, Taiwanese, Nigerian, Togolese, Congolese, Cuban, Puerto Rican, Venezuelan, Iranian, St Kittsian, Dutch Antillian, Haitian, Croatian, Korean, Indian, Pakistani, American, Canadian, Jamaican and more. Everyone really really liked Obama.