In the nearly three weeks since Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) made his unofficial debut as a presidential candidate, his senior advisers have been holed up in a temporary office on Connecticut Avenue NW, feverishly working to translate the huge excitement about his candidacy into a political strategy.

For all the buzz about his running, Obama did not enter the race with the conventional weapons of a presidential candidate — a deep database of donors, a tactical road map for winning primaries or even a sign marking the entrance to his ad hoc campaign headquarters. Obama is only now starting to build a political infrastructure that matches his growing support.

Washington Post