Not to dwell on the afforementioned Matt Bai article on Obama's effect on black politics, but the author mentions something of note on his website.

The piece was about new and old models of leadership in black politics, and also the divergence in issues of new and old black political leaders, the starkest divide. Essentially, old means you're a 'black leader' and new means you're a 'leader who happens to be black.' He puts particular emphasis on Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter's theory of there being no "black or white way to fill a pothole."

Yet asked why there were not more women featured in his piece, Bai says he noticed that during the writing of it but "decided to follow the story where it led, rather than resorting to tokenism."

He also noticed that the new generation of black political leadership has a lot more males (you mean like the last generation?) and that, "I did interview Donna Edwards, a new congresswoman, but the interview wasn't as powerful as others, through no fault of hers."

Truly, because Edwards is a part of that new era of black politicians with their focus on the broad spectrum of issues beyond the African American community. If nothing else, it seems her gender, and the failure to draw a contrast with a powerful old generation black female leader, had something to do with it.