There’s a good article in today’s New York Times about Reggie Love, the right hand man for Barack Obama. He’s not a political advisor, or a workout guru, or a personal secretary, or a bodyguard, but he’s the guy who is there all the time for Barack Obama, carving a niche for himself. No, he doesn’t look a thing like that Reggie Love over on the left, but that’s his name, Reggie Love, just like Susan Sarandon’s character in “The Client.” In this case, the client is a Presidential candidate, not a little boy, and Reggie is a 6′5″ former athelete from Duke University.

Seems this guy is moving into the limelight. The Times article mentions all the little things Reggie Love is ready to accomplish for Obama and the campaign. There’s a superstition, for instance, about shooting hoops on primary election days. As such, the article ia amusing. I particularly liked the description of Reggie and how he’s becoming indispensible to the Obama campaign, as well as becoming a bit of a rock star in his own light. From the New York Times:

Compared with the even-tempered and self-controlled Mr. Obama, Mr. Love is raffish, always joking with the Secret Service, offering closed-fist high-fives to members of the news media and making frequent appearances in the daily pool reports. At a V.F.W. hall in Indiana, he helped out when the senator did not want a second Budweiser, taking it off Mr. Obama’s hands.

Mr. Obama often mentions that Mr. Love was a wide receiver on a football scholarship at Duke who also walked onto the basketball team. At a rally a few weeks ago in Mr. Love’s hometown, Charlotte, N.C., the candidate led the crowd in a chant of “Reggie, Reggie, Reggie!”

After the Democratic presidential debate in Philadelphia in April, Mr. Obama borrowed a move from the rapper Jay-Z and mimed brushing off his shoulders, but it was Mr. Love who had uploaded his music to the senator’s iPod in the first place — a silver Nano that he bought the senator for his 46th birthday.

Sister Toldjah has a better description of that rally, but that’s not my aim here now. I’m thinking this kind of piece is a show of the inevitability of the Obama campaign that I’ve not yet seen in the mainstream media, an attempt to introduce us to some of the important players who have previously been under the radar. No, Reggie Love isn’t as important in a political sense as a host of advisors might be, but here’s a guy who could eventually fill a role not unlike George Stephanopoulos filled for President Clinton, a young man with a good sense of humor and a strong handle on the pulse of America. For the Times to run this article is an indication that they’re looking to highlight the people who will be central players in an Obama Presidency.

So why didn’t these folks at the Times do this before? It’s a lovely story of another African American of accomplishment who will be influential, and it is a story of youth and achievement. It’s feelgood, in just the complete opposite way that the obsession with Jeremiah Wright has been. This is the sort of story to dispel the fears of those whites who, with the vestiges of racism still running in their veins, fear, just a little, an African-American President, whereas what we’ve gotten over the last few months is story after story feeding that fear. Yeah, this is a positive. I’d welcome seeing something similar written about a McCain campaign aide, something to cut the fear many americans have of having an old man as President. But I don’t see that kind of openness on the part of the McCain campaign, and I suspect the guy in a similar role with the McCain campaign isn’t near as likable as is Reggie Love.

Reggie, Reggie! (Not Reggie Jackson, either.)