Why? Because he can read off a teleprompter really well. He's probably reading the words of a middle aged white guy.
Middle aged white guy? Because black people can't be eloquent on their own, right? Pretty incredible thing to write on the 40th anniversary of MLK's assassination.
FYI, all politicians read from teleprompters, but Obama does it much less than others, and he also writes most of his own speeches (e.g. the big speech on race a few weeks ago), which is just about unheard of today in US politics.
What's he done other than run for office? Worked as a community organizer in inner city Chicago, practiced civil right law, taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago, and served 8 years in the Illinois Senate.
What good ideas does he have? Depends on your definition of "good" I guess. He's got a set of 20 or so issue positions on his website (
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/) (yeah I know, fuck that right?). He is not "for" privatizing social security (he has only said that "everything is on the table"), nor is he "against" universal health care (he seems to favor a more incremental approach to getting there), but the reality is that neither soc sec privatization (a bad idea) nor universal health care (a good idea) are going to happen in the current political environment, no matter who is prez.
For my money, opposing the war was a good idea. Voting for it, like Clinton and McCain did, was a really shitty idea.