It seems that some conservatives hate strong women who happened to be married to strong Democratic political candidates. Or maybe it’s simply that strong women make easy targets.

Hillary Clinton has learned that the hard way . . . twice. First, she was reviled as Bill Clinton’s nerdy, ultra-feminist wife. And then she transformed into a bitchy, ball-busting candidate to be President of the United States who didn’t appeal to large segments of the US population until she teared up on camera and showed she was a “real” woman.

Largely for the same reason, Michelle Obama had to go on “The View” (a US daytime talk show with a predominantly female audience) to show her “warmer” side, though it should be said that she didn’t cry. It seems that many conservatives attack any woman in the political sphere who’s not as unassuming, dainty, non-threatening and “lady-like” as Laura Bush, who knows that her correct place is beside (or more likely, behind) her husband and who evokes the image of the good homemaker and mother (as opposed to strong career woman and intellectual equal).

Not that the two are necessarily contradictory. I grew up with both of my parents in a relatively happy home, but I have no doubt that a large part of whom I am is because of who and how my mother is. She was a force of nature in our family, inspiring all of us to get the best education possible and kicking our butts when necessary. My sister good-humoredly compares my mother to Mama Rose in Gypsy, but my mother also spoiled us, buying us Reeboks when we begged for them even though money was tight or cooking our favorite Jamaican foods whenever we returned home from college. And yes, calling at least once a week once we left home to know how we were doing even as we consistently evaded her phone calls. She did all of that, went back for an advanced degree after we emigrated to the US and worked a full-time job.

And it seems that Michelle Obama had a similar path. She has two young daughters and until the recent campaign, a full-time executive job. And let’s face it, being a mom is not for wimps, much less a mom with a full-time executive job who’s also supporting her husband’s political career and has degrees from both Princeton and Harvard.

So it’s a bit sad that people are attacking her for being too “tough”. And it’s a little bit sad that she needs to go on national TV to prove that she’s “warm”, even though she’s not the one running for president. Certainly a male candidate would never be criticized for being too tough or not warm enough, and I can’t imagine that if Hillary had won the nomination, Bill would be on “The View” showing his warm, fuzzy side. In fact, a lot of people were annoyed when Bill so vigorously and pugnaciously defended his wife, but up to a certain point I guess it was normal, maybe even “chivalrous”.

That made it all the more heartwarming when Michelle paid tribute to the battles that Hillary Clinton has had to fight over the last 16 years, to prove that she can be both tough and feminine at the same time. I was touched that Michelle noted that Hillary was a pioneer, a fighter, and that sexism had played some not unimportant role in the news media’s coverage of Hillary.

In Michelle’s own words: “It’s only when women like her take the hits and it’s painful, it’s hurtful, but she’ s taking them so that my girls, when they come along, won’t have to feel it as badly,” Mrs. Obama said.

See the full interview below.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about role models and how important they are.

Take, for example, the tennis world. Monica Seles (my childhood tennis hero and the reason why I play with a two-handed backhand) dominated tennis in the late 1980s, and 20 years later there is a generation of Serbian tennis stars inspired by her success — Ana Ivanovic (women’s number 1), Jelena Jankovic (women’s number 2) and Novak Djokovic (men’s number 3 and rising). Similarly, Anna Kournikova’s success inspired a lot of Russian tennis parents to invest more seriously in their daughters’ tennis education. The result is that 5 of the top 10 female tennis players are Russian.

There are, of course, role models who are not athletes. Entertainers also have the ability to inspire. Forbes just published its list of most powerful celebrities, and three of the top 5 celebrities are black and very well paid: Oprah Winfrey (number 1 with 2007 income of $275 million), Tiger Woods (number 2 with 2007 income of $115 million ) and Beyoncé Knowles (number 4 with 2007 income of $80 million). (Angelina Jolie is number 3 with 2007 income of $14 million, and David Beckham is number 5 with 2007 income of $50 million.)

I have no doubt that Oprah’s, Tiger’s and Beyonce’s success will inspire generations of future black athletes, entertainers and moguls.

I myself draw inspiration from their struggles and successes.

That being said, their success does little to undermine the common stereotype that blacks are just great athletes who can sing and dance. In no way do I want to downplay the success of stars like Beyoncé and especially not of Oprah. But my point is that while their amazing collective success and spending power show the value of hard work, God-given talent and clever marketing plans, and while they are trailblazers that still have to overcome remnants of racism within their respective industries, their success comes within an entertainment industry that has traditionally been relatively open to blacks.

That’s why I’m so happy that Obama won the Democratic nomination. I was rooting for Hillary, in part because I grew up with the Clintons and felt a certain amount of nostalgia. But even more importantly, I never thought that white people would vote for Obama, and I didn’t want to see another Republican in office. I thought it was impossible that a black man could become the Democratic Party’s nominee, and even more impossible that he would have a decent chance at becoming the next president of the United States.

I grew up surrounded by heroes, some of whom were famous black athletes and entertainers.

But the possibility of a black President never even entered into the realm of conscious thought, much less hope.

And it’s not like we’ll have to wait 20 years to see the immediate benefits of Obama’s trailblazing campaign. My mother, for example, is driving all over the East Coast to participate in the Obama campaign. He is causing black people of all ages to re-evaluate America and themselves. Before his campaign, my mother had never actively participated in the political process other than to vote. Now she’s giving donations, recruiting friends, calling me whenever there is an important Obama update . . . .

So I think that this is a really unique moment, not just because I can’t wait to get rid of George Bush and replace him with someone with a brain and a heart, but also because Obama’s campaign destroys one of the last areas where blacks have been denied access, where I thought it was impossible even to contemplate a possibility of success.

I mean, outside of Africa and the Caribbean, has a black person ever been elected to run a country in which blacks are a racial minority? Probably not, because there’s still a lingering suspicion/stereotype that blacks simply aren’t smart or capable enough (unless they’re Republicans, in which case they almost have to repudiate their “blackness” in exchange for political gain.)

On the other hand, there are already women running major Western countries and/or campaigning for the top spot, so we know it’s at least possible to dream of a female President.

But blacks have largely been unable to dream this dream. Until now . . .

Now it seems that maybe we can sing, dance, play sports and run countries too.

Here at nuroa, our real estate search engine, we’ve been experimenting with citizen journalism.

In Spain, we’re recorded 3 videos so far under our series called “Y Tu Que Piensas” (So What Do You Think)? Our first episode asked people on the streets of Barcelona how the current real estate crisis might affect their votes in the recent Spanish elections. Our second video covered the March for Decent Housing and asked the participants to define “decent housing”. Pretty soon, we’ll launch our third video.

In Germany, we’ve recorded 9 videos when we visited Germany to attend the Re:publica conference. Kirsten has already launched two of the interviews (here and here) that we did at Re:publica asking well-known German bloggers where they live in Berlin and why. We’ll be launching our Berlin series of videos over the next few weeks.

So that’s why I read with particular fondness the post about the supposed Obama-supporting blogger that’s taking down the Obama campaign.  Mayhill Fowler, a blogger for OffTheBus.net, went to a campaign fundraiser as a citizen (press were not allowed to report on the event — it was supposed to be off the record), but she decided that as a “journalist” she had to publish in her blog Obama’s comment that poor small-town voters “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them” as a way to explain their frustrations. Of course, Hillary Clinton immediately jumped on the comments to show that Obama doesn’t relate well with an important base of the Democratic Party — poor whites. She claims that he’s elitist, as opposed to her and Bill Clinton, two Yale-educated lawyers who earned more than $109 million from 2000 to 2007. Obama, on the other hand, just recently paying off his student loans from Harvard Law School. But nonetheless, the quote is causing Obama a lot of grief, and some people are saying that it could change the course of the current race. (Maybe that’s just the traditional press looking for a story in a relatively slow news period?)

But my point is less to focus on Bill and Hillary, or Obama and Michelle, and to focus more on figuring out what a blogger’s responsibility is when she is both “citizen” and “journalist”. On the one hand, it’s clear that the Obama political team hoped to exploit “citizen journalists” by inviting them to political fundraisers and expecting traditional, fluff coverage about how great Obama is. On the other hand, it’s not clear that a blogger who’s invited to an “off-the-record” political event should be writing a story in which she breaks the basic rules by quoting the political candidates. After all, she wasn’t the only “journalist” invited to the event, she was just the only one to quote Obama in her blog.

What are the limits and responsibilities of a “citizen journalist”, and do they differ in any substantive way from the limits and responsibilities that “real journalists” face? What do you think? Is Mayhill Flower a snake in the grass, or a modern day Woodward and Bernstein?

This is the second episode of nuroaTV, our video channel for real estate. To record it, we went to the March for a Vivienda Digna, which took place on 1 March. We marched from Plaza Catalunya to Via via Laeitana to the beat of Brazilian drums. It seems like I can’t escape Carnaval! I was sambaing during the march — maybe I kind of missed the point?

More seriously, I should probably be more discrete, but that’s not my style. The real story is that we approached the organizers to see if there were some way that we could help out, since we too believe that everyone deserves dignified housing. As I will write in another blog post, I came to Barcelona in chase of quality of life. It’s still here, but life is now a life more expensive than it was just five years ago, and housing is only once indice of the problem.

In any case, the organizers kindly but quickly ushered us out of their offices, noting that they don’t work with “companies”, which I got the impression was a kind of dirty word. I respect that, even though I think that it’s important to include ALL voices in discussions that affect all members of a given society. I might not share the methods of squatters and more revolutionary anti-capitalists, but I do understand their frustration. And the only way to solve the underlying problems is to have a constructive dialogue in which we look for solutions together.

But I’ll save my kumbaya speech for another moment. For now, it’s enough that you enjoy the video, and let me know: What does the right to dignified housing mean to you? Does it mean anything? And if it so, what should society do to ensure this right?

Why do smart people do dumb things?

Why do we all take risks that we know are not worth it? The list is interminable: smoking, drinking, super-sizing your order at McDonalds, going to McDonalds, unprotected sex, promiscuity, cheating on your partner, drugs, not going to the gym, ignoring your mother’s phone calls, speeding around Barcelona on a motorbike, going at 160 km per hour on the highway when the speed limit is 110 . . . .

Why is it so good to be so bad?

Bill Clinton had his Monica Lewinsky. Sarkozy has his Carla Bruni. And now Eliot Spitzer, the Governor of New York, has his Emperor’s Club V.I.P. People are calling for his resignation after it was made public that he was “Client-9″ at a high-class prostitution ring with a taste for petite American brunettes. According to prosecutors, the Emperor’s Club operated in London, Paris, Miami and other cities, and charged between $1,000 and $5,500 an hour.

Spitzer, better than anyone else, should have known better. As attorney general, he made his career by angrily and enthusiastically hunting anyone and everyone that committed a crime, including members of prostitution rings, which he denounced as rife with human trafficking, drug trafficking and money laundering.

Now it seems that the sheriff was also an outlaw.

I’m trying not to judge him. As Britney Spears famously explained, “I’m not that innocent.” I’ve made my share of mistakes. I have my “bad boy” streak. Part of getting older is coming to grips with one’s own imperfections . . . realizing that youthful idealism is refreshing, but at the end of the day, we’re all very flawed human beings full of contradictions and hypocrisies that cause pain to ourselves and to our loved ones.

Good people do bad things.

But that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t suck.

(By the way, the reference to “the spirit is willing . . .” is from the New Testament (Matthew 26:41), where Jesus tells his disciples on the night before he was crucified: “Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” The point is that Jesus himself was struggling with temptation, but he overcame it, unlike the weaker disciples.)

I know that I should stay out of politics, but I don’t usually do what I should.

I have to say that I’m very happy that Zapatero won. Or almost more to the point, I’m very happy that Rajoy lost. One xenophobic homophobic leader (ahem, Bush) is enough for me.

This morning as I sat in a cafe listening to my iPhone and reading the paper, I was a bit surprised by La Vanguardia’s (the Catalan newspaper’s) headline: “Zapatero Gana Por El Apoyo de Catalunya (Zapatero Wins Because of Catalunya’s Support)“. Probably true, but somehow I didn’t think that was the most important element of the story. It’s like if Obama wins and then the headline were “Obama wins because Blacks Voted for Him.” It would be undoubtedly true and marginally newsworthy, but for me there is so much more at stake than regional pride.

Anyway, when I got to the office, I thought it’d be interesting to look at how international newspapers covered the story. The Wall Street Journal’s headline was: “Socialists Win in Spain, Get Clear Mandate“. The WSJ defines the mandate as “engineering a soft landing for a country that has fueled European economic growth for a decade” — which, for me, is the most important thing, ahead of which region played what role in the electoral process.

For the most part, the Journal has a favourable write-up of Zapatero noting that “[t]he Socialists’ re-election is a clear vote of confidence in the charismatic Mr. Zapatero, who became prime minister four years ago at the age of 43. Mr. Zapatero’s tenure has focused on social issues, including introducing gay marriage and tougher penalties on domestic violence against women.” The Journal also seems reassured that Zapatero “can count on the well-respected former European Union Economic Affairs Commissioner and two-time Spanish Finance Minister Pedro Solbes, who is likely to be finance minister in the new government.” In short, Zapatero is seen as a charismatic leader with a clear mandate and an effective team. Not bad, considering that the Journal is a more conservative newspaper.

The New York Times, which has more of a liberal slant, also noted that the election gave Zapatero a clear, new mandate. The headline was “Socialists Re-elected in Spain, After Bitter Campaign“, and the article noted that “[d]espite a bitterly fought campaign, the outcome seemed to endorse some of Mr. Zapatero’s boldest decisions, including the withdrawal of Spain’s troops from Iraq, the granting of more autonomy to Spain’s rebellious regions, simplified divorce and the legalization of homosexual marriage.” Again, the focus is on the fact that Zapatero is a bold leader with a clear mandate to move Spain toward modernity (in line with the direction that the NYT has called for the US goverment to move in).

Interestingly, the NYT ran a story on Saturday in which the author noted that Rajoy seemed just the opposite of modern. The reporter explained: “Mr. Rajoy, a 52-year-old former interior and education minister, has not been helped by his personal style. He has a graying beard, apparently to cover scars from a car accident years ago, that makes him look old-fashioned and older than his years. He laces his speeches with 19th-century expressions and suffers from unfortunate nervous habits, sticking out his tongue and bulging his eyes when he is angry.”

I agree with the Times and the Journal. Rajoy was an unwanted blast-from-the past that used fear of difference (gays and immigrants, among others) to win votes. Zapatero’s message was more inclusive and optimisic. So I prefer Zapatero. I think that he’s moving Spain in the right direction. The economic downturn is scary, but thanks to the Bush family, I’ve already lived through a few recessions, so what’s one more? It’s part of the cycle of life. What goes up, must come down . . .

My only hope is that either Obama or Hillary will win, because 8 years of Bush is almost more than I can bear. The US needs someone to take us back in the right direction.

In our effort to stay cutting edge and try out new things, we’ve launched our own video channel at nuroa.es and nuroa.de called “NuroaTV“. I think that this makes us the property search engine to delve seriously into videos.

And no, we’re not trying to be YouTube II, but we do think that video is just another format for presenting our users with relevant information and feedback from other consumers. I think that the results — that is, the video below — speaks for itself!

In any case, last weekend a bunch of us (along with our young video director, Xesc Estapé and his production team) hung out in the centre of Barcelona to see what average people thought about various issues, one of which was the effect of the real estate “crisis” on the Spanish elections, which will take place this Sunday. We thought that it was timely given that even the New York Times had written a story about real estate and the Spanish elections.

Our series is called: “¿y tú qué piensas? (so what do you think?)“, and it fits into our strategy of offering hyperlocal content that keeps real estate consumers well informed about current market conditions. For the moment, the video is on a separate page on Nuroa’s website, but we will soon integrate our videos directly into the search results page.

For this first video, we went to the streets of Barcelona to see what the Spanish public really thought about José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the Socialist prime minister, and his conservative rival, Mariano Rajoy in the context of the housing crisis. Let’s just say that people were generally pissed about the current situation.

But don’t take my word for it. Take a look for yourself! And please let me know what you think about the video. (Warning: The video is in Spanish, but there are still quite a few very funny images that can be understood no matter what language you speak!)

I don’t know why I keep doing it, since it seems that the Wall Street Journal thrives on publishing racially insensitive op-ed pieces, but yesterday got annoyed again when I read John McWhorter’s op-ed piece called “Hillary and MLK“.

Hillary Clinton made the rather dumb observation that Lyndon B. Johnson had been instrumental in pushing through the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which effectively outlawed racial apartheid in the United States. It represented the culmination of the rights for which Martin Luther King had fought and died. Getting the Civil Rights enacted — something that a lot of White Southerners opposed — required a politician with LBJ’s great skills and understanding of how Washington’s political machinery worked.

Hillary’s point was that she could be the Civil Rights Movement’s next LBJ — the sympathetic white president who has the legislative skill and experience to push through difficult civil rights legislation. Community activists (which is what Obama has been throughout much of his life) are essentially the poor man’s lobbyists, but there are many better paid, more influential lobbyists, and that’s a large part of the reason that blacks have not made so many significant political advances since the Civil Rights Era. They don’t have enough political influence.

The President of the United States is the most powerful and influential person in the US (in the world?), and having him (or her) on your side will do a lot to help you win difficult political battles.

So why do I say it was a dumb comment? Hillary was 100% right in her observation, but it was probably not the best comment to make when you need to convince black voters that they should vote for you instead of the first viable black presidential candidate. It’s precisely because everyone knows that the President of the United States is the most powerful person on the planet that many blacks are drawn to support Obama — he’ll probably “feel their pain” better than Hillary can. For him, it’s not just a moral obligation, or the right thing to do. It’s personal.

Hillary’s comment was therefore substantively correct, but politically stupid.

So when I read McWhorter’s piece, I wasn’t annoyed by his premise: That Hillary Clinton has demonstrated that she is a civil rights warrior, and no matter how dumb the comment, she is probably not the biggest threat to the black community.

But I was annoyed by his tone. He remarks that blacks are paranoid and lack self-confidence, and that’s the reason why the black community took Hillary’s comment so personally. He writes:

“But why so very, very careful? What effect does it have on anyone’s life if that era is occasionally discussed in less than perfectly genuflective phraseology? Is the Klan waiting behind a hill? Will a black man working at an insurance company in Cleveland have a breakdown because someone didn’t give King precisely enough credit in a quick statement?

There is a willful frailty, a lack of self-confidence, in this kind of thinking. It suggests someone almost searching for things to claim injury about, donning the mantle of the noble victim in order to assuage a bruised ego. . . .

Well, politics is rarely pretty, but in this case the price is too high. For one, misinterpretation of statements in this vein makes black people look disinclined to process detail and context — in other words, dim. It only gives that much more fodder to views on black intelligence like those uttered by James Watson.“

But wait a second. I’m black and I agreed with the logic behind Hillary Clinton’s comment. And . . . surprise! He’s black too, and he agreed with Hillary’s comment. So why are all black people all of a sudden too insecure, too dumb and prone to proving James Watson’s theory that blacks are genetically inferior? Has he spoken to any black people before writing his op-ed? Or did he just listen to a few loud- mouth political activists like Al Sharpton who certainly do not speak for me and my black friends?

I remember when I was at Yale College, a conservative friend of mine tried to convince me to join her political group. Her rationale was that I was the kind of black guy that her conservative party would love to embrace. I’m sure that Colin Powell, Condeleeza Rice and Clarence Thomas were lured by similar entreaties — that they were the “smart ones” among the race of gifted dancers and athletes. I’m not saying that she was necessarily racist. Just that she was looking for a black poster child to show that her view of the world was colorblind. The logic there is a little twisted, isn’t it?

But forget about black people for a second. Which interest group in America isn’t overly sensitive? Aren’t all politics based on a volatile mix of lobbying for substantive rights and interests, whining and posturing? Isn’t that the American way in an era of political correctness? Gay groups got Isaiah Washington fired from “Grey’s Anatomy” for saying the word “faggot” on national television. The Jewish community has an advocacy group whose primary purpose is to scrutinize public statements that might be viewed as anti-Semitic, or in some cases, anti-Israel. Cuban-Americans fight vigorously against any measure that might even remotely reinforce support for Fidel Castro, to the point that it is pretty much illegal for Americans to travel to (or spend money in) Cuba.

And it’s not just minority groups that play this game. Rupert Murdoch, owner of the Wall Street Journal, has an entire television station devoted to fighting against the “left-wing” media, showing that even powerful white men get into the whole whining and word-parsing game.

Are all these groups also “dim”? Or is it only “dim” when black people do it?

I think it’s fairly disgusting when a black man feels like his only way to advance personally is at the cost of other blacks . . . like he wants to show the white world (and the Wall Street Journal’s target readers) that he is the genetic defect among his genetically inferior black brothers and sisters . . . the rest of us are idiots, but he’s been graced with the gift of keen insight. He probably wouldn’t have gotten published in the Wall Street Journal if he’d written the “obvious” piece noting that some black political leaders and Hillary Clinton were acting stupidly in this situation, so he chose to flavor his article and increase his chances of getting published by insinuating that this episode might prove to some that blacks as a race are genetically inferior.

All I can say is: “n***a, please”.

As I transition back into my day job as the CEO of an Internet start-up, I can’t help but reflect on what I’ve learned from the Hillary-Obama Battle Royale. Both politics and business involve a lot of careful strategic planning by very talented people. But in both areas, few of these well-laid plans ever play out as they were originally intended.

For example, both Hillary and Facebook were media darlings a few months ago, before being deemed profoundly “unlikeable” or “untrustworthy” and entering into the fight of their lives. Both seem to have survived these scares, but it’s unclear what the public’s final decision will be in either case.

On a more general level, I think that there are 5 key truths that apply as much to politics as it does to business:

5. When the going gets tough, a lot of investors get going. As soon as it seemed that she might lose the New Hampshire primary after already having lost the Iowa Caucuses, a lot of Hillary’s investors started to get cold feet, forcing the Clintons to have a lot of reassuring chats with their investors. Even in politics, a lot of investors want sure bets. As CEO of a property search start-up, I’ve often been surprised when some VCs seem annoyed that there’s some risk involved with start-up ventures. My advice is that if you are lucky enough to get various offers from VCs or business angels, go with the one who will be around when you face an unexpected setback (like a loss in the Caucuses) or encounter an unexpectedly tough new market entrant that’s generating a lot of buzz. Go with someone who will stick with you through for better or for worse, within limits.

4. Karma is a bitch: Sometimes its easier to take ethical or legal shortcuts, but the truth will eventually come out. And it will take a big bite out of your ass when it does. There are lots of business examples here:

• Enron and their “creative” accounting theories;
• Martha Stewart, who thought she’d save a few dollars thanks to insider trading, but ended up paying a lot more in fines and jail time;
• Marion Jones, who disgraced herself and her fans when she admitted to using steroids. She too will see the inside of a jail cell; and
• Facebook, whose founder Mark Zuckerberg arguably lied and stole from former friends and colleagues to develop his mini-Empire. Some of the negative publicity about Facebook’s advertising platform (Beacon) arguably stems from the fact that Mark Zuckerberg seems a bit slimy.

Note that I didn’t say “Good guys finish last”, because I’m not quite sure I believe that. But the truth has a nasty and persistent habit of being discovered no matter how clever or careful you think you are. Just ask Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky.

3. Keep it simple, stupid! One of Obama’s great gifts is that he’s able to communicate controversial and complicated topics — race and poverty — via visual cues and oratorical flourishes. He doesn’t really ever delve into a 100-point plan. There’s no need to. His aim is to sell his vision of America. Great Internet companies like Google use a similar strategy. Both Obama and Google could obviously explain their core concepts in painful detail, but do you really care how Google generates so many relevant results in so little time? Or do you agree that Google’s minimalist home page conveys a simplicity that enhances its user experience. Great communicators — and great products - hide a lot of the complicated stuff , because they know that most consumers/voters suffer from Attention Deficit Disorder.

2. It’s great to be strong and visionary. But sometimes it’s okay to admit that you have weaknesses and doubts. It’s okay to be human. This is one that’s particularly easier said than done for me. A lot of people expect leaders to be emotionless robots. Winners execute exceptionally well no matter what the personal circumstance or obstacle. Displays of emotion are for the weak. But I think that the Hillary crying episode showed that the public resists leaders that appear inhuman and inflexible. In reviewing why people tend to be railing against Facebook all of a sudden, for example, Duncan Riley of TechCrunch explained that Mark Zuckerberg would “be better off relaxing a little more and being more open and honest; Facebook must reach a tipping point this year in growth and people will feel a lot better about supporting him if he was little less robotic, and more importantly more open.” Closed and robotic is out. Open and honest is in.

1. Charisma and “likability” matter, particularly when you want to be the top dog. Hillary is probably very annoyed that, although she has paid her dues, a much more charismatic male candidate is threatening her for the top spot. Although Obama is a lot less experienced than Hillary, voters are willing to focus more on his likability factor. All other things being equal, people like to see nice guys or women do well. In his Digg case study, for example, Nisan Gabbay argues that the Kevin Rose persona has a lot to do with Digg’s success. He explains: “I believe that Kevin Rose’s personality and public persona played a big part in Digg’s success. Initial users wanted to see Digg succeed because they wanted to see Kevin succeed. When Digg was raising its first VC round, some well-respected Internet investors felt that better products were about to be launched that would unseat Digg. However, we have learned that having a superior technical product is not necessarily the determining factor for success. Consumer Internet services are both an art and a science. The Kevin Rose persona was a big contributor to the “art” side of Digg that is impossible to replicate by competitors.”

To paraphrase Hillary’s evaluation of Obama, successful leadership is as much about poetry as it is about prose.

What makes for a great first lady?

Are they the same traits that make for a great woman (as opposed to a great “lady”)?

First ladies — particularly younger first ladies — are often thrust into their nations’ fairy tales, representing their nation’s hopes and desires. They must become the people’s princess, which entails a series of contradictory and often impossible-to-achieve expectations.

It seems that first and foremost, most nations want their first ladies to be beautiful or at least supremely feminine/elegant. A first lady must be strong yet vulnerable and lady-like. She must be out of reach of the average male voter but somehow transmit accessibility. She must be classy but humble. Men must want to ravish her, and women must want to be her. Most importantly, she must never forget that her rightful place is at best next to (and usually behind) her powerful husband, who is the commander-in-chief. (It’s ironic to note how different the situation is when the wife is the person running for President. One of Hillary’s biggest appeals to many Democrats is that Bill Clinton comes as part of the package.)

In this sense, the quintessential First Lady is Jacqueline Kennedy, who claimed elegance by conjuring the spirits of her French ancestors (the Bouviers).

Carla Bruni is at least as pretty, as elegant and as learned as Jackie O. So how then do we understand all of the controversy and excitement about her planned engagement to French president Nicolas Sarkozy?

On paper, Bruni has it all:

• She is beautiful: She was one of the most highly paid models in the 1990s. She was the face of Dior and Chanel, and shot over 250 magazine covers.
• She is rich: She is the heiress to an Italian tire fortune.
• She is “well-bred”: Her stepfather is an Italian tire magnate and classical composer, and her mother is a concert pianist. She is well-educated and speaks three languages.
• She is successful: In addition to being a supermodel, she won the French equivalent of a Grammy as the country’s best female singer in 2004.

So what is it about Bruni that turns some French people off? Is is that she already has it all, and no one likes to see the genetically lucky get luckier? Is it that her relationship with Sarkozy started so soon after his divorce from his ex-wife? Is it the difference in age and sex appeal between Bruni and Sarkozy? I’m sure all of this has something to do with it, but I don’t think it’s the main reason.

Bruni’s biggest drawback, presumably, is that she is (as Beyonce might say) an independent woman. She has been quoted as saying that “love lasts for a long time, but burning desire, two or three weeks“. As such, she prefers polygamy and polyandry to monogamy. She has also described herself as a “cat” who knows how to tame men. And, of course, she has often been photographed throughout her career in her underwear.

In this sense, Bruni is a highly sexualized, unconventional woman.

Shakespeare might call her a shrew in need of a good taming. That’s not exactly high praise for an aspiring first lady.

A similar argument was made about Hillary Clinton when she first entered on the world’s stage. Before the designer pant suits, blond highlights and expensive hair cuts were the images of an asexual, humorless, fashion-illiterate Hillary with coke-rimmed glasses, a headband and not one ounce of glamour.

It is arguably this enduring image of Hillary — and her statements implying that she felt no need to “stand by her man” like some “little woman” and the disdain with which she contemplated being a housewife rather than becoming a high-powered lawyer — that explains why many “traditional” men and women have been uncomfortable with Hillary and why her tears were such a powerful statement of her renewed status as a woman.

It would be like Carla Bruni saying that she was a born-again virgin.

Though one was a top fashion model, and the other seemed to resist any desire to be fashionable, both Carla and Hillary share the fact that their unwillingness to conform to traditional gender roles arguably renders them inappropriate first ladies before large sections of their respective publics.

But maybe Carla has started a new trend. There are rumors in the Spanish and Latin American press that Naomi Campbell is the new sweet thing of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. The official version is that Naomi is meeting with various Latin American leaders as part of her new role as a contributing editor of GQ Magazine, and that one of her interviews was with Hugo Chavez, who supposedly fell head over heels inlove with the tempestuous model. Now that Carla has conquered Nick, it seems that the tabloids think that love is in the air whenever a model is in the vicinity of a horny, middle-aged politician.

These arm-chair discussions about race and gender are one thing.

But let’s seriously hope that Naomi is not that crazy.