It's Obamamania.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Few things would do more to restore Americans' shattered faith in their tarnished, scandal-plagued political system than having an opportunity to cheer for a decent man who might actually have a chance to win election to the most important job in the nation.

Barack Obama should run for president in 2008.

The charismatic freshman senator from Illinois is riding a still-rising wave of Obamamania tied to the release of his new memoir "The Audacity of Hope," his appearances on the cover of Time magazine and the Oprah Winfrey show and his virtual anointment as the hottest presidential commodity since Colin Powell by a who's who of political commentators, including New York Times columnists David Brooks, Bob Herbert and Frank Rich.

In an interview Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press," Obama poured jet fuel on the burning debate about his potential candidacy by renouncing statements he made on the same program last January ruling out a presidential bid in 2008. Now, "Will he or won't he?" is the key question for people handicapping the 2008 contest for the Democratic nomination - especially the Hillary Clinton camp.

Though the hype is white hot right now, Obama knows they don't hand out presidential nominations by acclimation. A White House race for the African-American senator is loaded with risks.

Despite his membership on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Obama lacks substantive foreign policy experience. Opponents who will have much broader backgrounds in domestic and international policymaking would portray Obama as a dangerous choice during the U.S. war on terrorism.

Obama also is characterized as a deliberative, consider-all-the-angles thinker who can be cautious to a fault. It's an open question whether the floundering Democratic Party can afford to hitch its wagon to a star who gives off even a whiff of indecisiveness.

Almost all of the criticisms can be dismissed with a two-word response: George Bush. Obama indecisive? President Bush is nothing if not decisive, it's the quality of the decision rather than the speed with which it's rendered that counts. No foreign policy experience? Credit Obama for saying from the start that the biggest U.S. foreign policy debacle since Vietnam - Bush's disastrous invasion of Iraq - was wrong.

Obama gains little from biding his time until 2012. If he sits out the 2008 race, he blows a chance to run when there is no incumbent seeking re-election and the field for his own party's nomination is wide open.

As numerous political analysts have pointed out, Obama need only look to the experience of Colin Powell in 1996, when Powell's popularity and influence argued powerfully for a presidential run. Powell decided to wait, and his best window on a bid for the Oval Office slammed shut.

Obama has nothing to lose and everything to gain from making the most of this moment in his political ascendancy. He would offer a disillusioned electorate the audacity of hope at a time when the Congress of the United States has an approval rating of 16 percent. Barack Obama should run for president in 2008.