What Makes Barack Obama Qualified to Be President?

What in the way of qualifications does Barack Obama bring to the table to warrant Time Magazine calling him 'The Next President'?

His track record is pretty thin: He wrote a book about himself and beat the pants off of Alan Keyes in an election. What else?

OJ Simpson wrote a book about himself and for that matter, so did Dennis Rodman. Are they somehow qualified to be president? I'm really not all that impressed by anyone who writes a book about.. well... themselves. Obama's book is hardly Paine's "Common Sense" nor is it even a poor attempt at re-creating JFK's "Profiles in Courage". It's merely a piece dedicated to himself, draped with enough unsubstantiated rhetoric to even come close to be called worthy of anyone's time.

As far as being a US Senator, well, let's look at his election. Obama beat Alan Keyes. Keyes is a brilliant orator and in my opinion, a great guy in general. However, beating Alan Keyes in an election makes you somehow Presidential material, than anyone who beats the Detroit Lions in the NFL is a Super Bowl contender. If beating Alan Keyes is now a requirement to winning the nomination of the Democratic Party for the Presidency, then why haven't Paul Sarbanes (who beat the stuffing out of Keyes in 1988 in Maryland for a Senate seat) or Barbara Milkulski (who repeated the beating four years later) being mentioned in the same breadth?

Bob Dole beat Alan Keyes, and for that matter, an entire field of candidates for the nomination in 1996, so how come he doesn't get a mug shot on the cover of Time with the headline "The Next President"?

And maybe it's just me, but how self-absorbed do you have to be to write a memoir (see Biography) at the ripe old age of 34? I know, a person like Obama who is apparently very skilled at marketing his image, without having much of a record to build upon it.