Obama has been able to match the Clintons at their signature game: collecting influential friends and supporters.

From The New York Times:

Mr. Obama’s ability to replicate the eclectic coalition he built in Chicago and expand it to the national stage has allowed the one-term senator to match the Clintons at their signature game: collecting influential friends and supporters.

Even moments that supporters see as his boldest are tempered by his political caution. The forceful speech he delivered in 2002 against the impending Iraq invasion — a speech that has helped define him nationally — was threaded with an unusual mantra for a 1960s-style antiwar rally: “I’m not opposed to all wars.” It was a refrain Mr. Obama had tested on his political advisers, and it was a display of his ability to speak to the audience before him while keeping in mind the broader audience to come.

The speech, friends say, was vintage Obama, a bold but nuanced message that has become the touchstone of his presidential campaign: While he said the Iraq war would lead to “an occupation of undetermined length with undetermined costs and undetermined consequences,” he was also careful to emphasize that there were times when military intervention was necessary.

When Mr. Obama delivered a now-famous speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention that catapulted him onto the national stage, sitting in the audience was Mayor Daley of Chicago.

As Mr. Obama spoke, Mr. Daley and other Illinois officials “were just as wide-eyed as the thousands of conventiongoers,” said James A. DeLeo, a Democratic leader in the Illinois Senate.