there's something more fundamental to "the obama effect", and if I may be permitted make a few brazen overly general
assumptions, I will try to spell out my little theory.
libs tend to deny God and the role of faith in life. if you buy into the fact that these things are important (or even critical), and that denying them creates a void in people's soul whether they even realize it or not, and that nature abhors a vacuum, then Barack Obama is just what the doctor ordered; a real life, human diety to safely worship without committing a crime against their heterodoxy.
I really think that they have been looking for this guy for decades. he completes them.
I've been saying something similar to this for quite some time, and agree wholly.
The need for God is a real and authentic need.
Some people however just don't want to acknowledge God, usually because they're rectal apertures.
So they reject God.
However, they still have this need, this void that demands filling.
They try to fill it by giving God-like characteristics to some human; the Kennedys, the Incompetent One, the Impeached One, Barry "Goldwater" Obama, Fidel Castro, Mao tse-Tung, Joseph Stalin, Adolph Hitler, &c., &c., &c.--all of whom have enjoyed enormous cults of the personality.
But all it is, is filling an empty glass with.....air.