WASHINGTON - In the beginning, there was "Obama Girl," a young model who became an Internet sensation for her video "I Got a Crush on Obama."
Actress Scarlett Johansson followed, famously claiming -- with some apparent hope -- that she was engaged to the happily married Barack Obama. She eventually had Canadian actor Ryan Reynolds as her groom instead.
Barbara Walters gushed that the Democratic presidential nominee was "very sexy" when he appeared on "The View" in March.
More recently, onetime "Golden Girl" Betty White confessed to her own lust for the Illinois senator.
"That is one hot piece of man," the 86-year-old White told Craig Ferguson on "The Late Late Show." "If Barack Obama needs more experience, I could give it to him."
Women -- young and old, famous and non-famous, and significant numbers of voters -- seem to be collectively swooning over Obama. While it's his policies that have primarily attracted them, some haven't been shy about admitting they also find the tall, lanky and youthful Obama physically fetching.
"This is the single greatest photo in the history of American politics," one woman wrote on the Wonkette website this summer after it published a photograph of a buff Obama in a swimsuit on a Hawaiian beach.
Obama has consistently enjoyed a significant lead over his Republican rival, John McCain, among women voters. With female voters expected to outpace men by a staggering nine million this election, Obama's popularity among women -- who report they like his stances on the economy and women's issues -- is expected to be crucial.
Some of his female fans aren't just attracted to the pro-choice Obama's policies, however. They frequent the message boards of political websites, calling him "hot" and "stunning," and entire blogs are dedicated to him, including one that features nothing but photos of young Obama fans and images of him cuddling babies, entitled Yes We Can Hold Babies (http://yeswecanholdbabies.wordpress.com/).
"I swear to God, I ovulate every time I see a picture of him holding a baby," says Katherine Hamill, 25, a New York City actress who doesn't hesitate to make mention of her ardour when she comments on various blogs.
Hamill admits to a full-fledged crush on the 47-year-old Obama, but it's not all physical.
"In all seriousness, there's no denying Barack's an attractive man, but what really makes him hot to me are his policies -- very pro-woman, very populist, so great on health care and the environment. Those things make him infinitely more attractive to me," she said in a recent interview.
"It's like finding this guy who cooks and cleans and is nice to your mother, who will also just happen to get us out of Iraq. And look at him during the debates -- he was such a gentleman. My sister-in-law kept texting each other throughout the debates and telling each other how in love with him we are."
Jane Hall, a frequent Fox News pundit and associate communications professor at American University in Washington, D.C., compares Obama's allure to that of both John F. Kennedy and the suave, fictional spy James Bond -- without the chronic womanizing.
"There are certainly parallels to JFK in terms of the appeal Kennedy had -- he was handsome, he was young compared to Dwight D. Eisenhower, he had real charisma and was graceful and witty, much like Obama," Hall said.
"But I see parallels to James Bond as well -- Obama is preternaturally cool and unflappable, and we like cool in our celebrities, and we like physically attractive people too. People are excited by his optimism and his looks and his personal manner, and he's moved totally into rock star category now."
As the 72-year-old McCain has complained, members of the media have apparently fallen under Obama's spell as well.
"Imagine the cool cred of a Steve McQueen, the black charisma of a Denzel Washington, the lean athleticism of a young Mick Jagger, and you have a politician made partly out of rock star and partly out of movie idol," journalist Dennis Ellman wrote recently in the British tabloid the Sunday Mirror.
"He's not just a terrific orator, he has sex appeal too ... tall, relaxed, supremely self-assured, he strides to the microphone, arms held loosely, head to one side, the top act about to kick off the show."
The Nation's JoAnn Wypijewski wrote this summer that Obama is a sex symbol for a new, younger generation of Americans -- one that is colour-blind.
"If politically he now appears to be not substantively different from any other neoliberal, as a sex symbol he is the new man," she wrote.
"New, most plainly, because in his mingled blood those born since 1980 or so can see their future lovers and children, if they don't already see themselves. For this generation, interracial sex is a normal experience, still complicated but nothing that 60 per cent of them have not already entertained ... nothing more risky than love."
